Hugh Laurie May Join ROBOCOP Reboot as Antagonist

In an awesomely developing story, Hugh Laurie (House, M.D.) is in talks to play a villain in Jose Padilha’s upcoming Robocop reboot.  The former sarcastic doctor on Fox’s long-running series is in negotiations to play a cold, sarcastic CEO of Omnicorp, a mega-corporation responsible for the creation of Robocop.  Laurie certainly has the swagger to play a CEO and I’m thrilled at the prospect of him playing a villain.  Details are scarce at the moment, but it seems as if his character would be similar to the one played by Ronny Cox in the 1987 Paul Verhoeven original.  Hit the jump for more.

Variety reported that Laurie was in talks to star as OmniCorp’s CEO, but offers few details other than that.  In the original story, Cox played an up-and-coming executive in Omni Consumer Products who failed (quite spectacularly) to provide a suitable weapon for the company’s new contract with the local police force.  As his character is later revealed to have villainous ties, this might be along the lines of what Padilha has in mind for Laurie.  Then again, the script by James Vanderbilt, Josh Zetumer and Nick Schenk may have a different antagonist in mind.

Either way, the Robocop reboot stars Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) in the title role with Abbie Cornish (Sucker Punch) in talks to join as his wife.  Previously cast were Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight) as the scientist responsible for Robocop’s creation and Samuel L. Jackson (The Avengers) as a media mogul.  Production is scheduled to begin this September in Toronto with a possible summer 2013 release.