Hugh Laurie Cast as Robocop Remake Villain?

As his first big post-House role, it is being reported that Hugh Laurie will join the cast of the upcoming Robocop remake. Although he is still in negotiations for the role, Variety says that he will be playing the part of Laurie "the villainous CEO of Omni Corp, which creates the title character for its own gain."

Joel Kinnaman signed on to play Alex Murphy/Robocop and Gary Oldman will be playing the scientist who creates him. Samuel L. Jackson was also recently cast as Pat Novak, “a charismatic TV mogul." The movie already has a release date of August 9th, 2013, with Jose Padilha (Elite Squad) directing a script from Nick Schenk (Gran Torino).

We’re hoping to hear much more about the project at Comic-Con, but until then, here’s what Joel Kinnaman had to say about the remake during a recent interview:

“There’s a lot of neuroscience now raising the question, ‘Is all the intelligence in the human body in the brain?’ and they’re finding out that, no, it’s not like that… The body has intelligence itself, and we’re much more of an organic creature in that way. It’s not a control tower that does everything….

…RoboCop is going to be a lot more human… The first movie is one of my favorite movies. I love it. Of course, Verhoeven has that very special tone, and it’s not going to have that tone. It’s a re-imagination of it. There’s a lot of stuff from the original. There are some details and throwbacks, but this version is a much better acting piece, for Alex Murphy and especially when he is RoboCop. It’s much more challenging.

…It’s not going to be jaw action. They’re still working on the suit and how it’s going to look, but the visor is going to be see-through… You’re going to see his eyes.”