Darren Aronofsky's 'RoboCop' Reboot Unplugged

Gee, here's a surprise: The RoboCop remake is dead. Two reports, one from The Financial Times and the other from Moviehole, indicate the same thing, and apparently Darren Aronofsky is leaving the project, which I think he's unofficially stopped seriously considering about a year ago. Trouble really started bubbling up when MGM began walking around with the insides of its pockets hanging out. Nearly $4 billion in debt does not normally give a filmmaker a ton of confidence he'll get the financial support needed to make a movie. And that, reportedly, is what has happened. "Gone. Kaput. Canceled," an insider told Moviehole about the project, adding that Aronofsky "lost interest." Oh, irony: As Aronofsky loses interest, MGM pleads for leniency because it can't pay interest. There's a bigger item to consider, though, and it's MGM's 80s remake trilogy. Red Dawn is at the very least in post-production, and the presumed release date is still November. MGM denied a story about a month ago that the movie wasn't being released at all. However, there was this little convention over the weekend attended by about 125,000 people, and you'd think MGM or the production company would want to represent the only movie currently on the slate. To the best of my knowledge, there was no Red Dawn at Comic-Con, so make up your own mind about the feasibility of a November release. And then there's Poltergeist, constantly delayed, and that won't happen until MGM sorts out its financial mess or finds a buyer in the $2 billion to take over all those old movies and reach an agreement with lienholders. So, in the end, all three of those films could be in terrible, terrible trouble. At some point, Red Dawn will arrive. It might just be a home video thing to take advantage of the fact that Chris Hemsworth is in Thor, but it won't be shelved forever. Or maybe a studio buys it outright from MGM, who would in return get a percentage of the grosses. But RoboCop, it appears, is d-e-a-d.

Comments

[Jup2]

Two weeks ago at a New York FOX promotion for it's new Fall series "Lone Star', RED DAWN actress, Adrianne Palicki, said that they just screened the movie Red Dawn and that it was going to be out in March.

"Adrianne Palicki on MGM's 'RED DAWN' Movie Release: "It's going to come out in March. We just screened it. It's amazing." 9:51 AM Jul 16th via web ~ http://twitter.com/Jup2/status/18687022471

Original Interview here: http://bit.ly/bZ6S2Y

[Rob]

I suppose this cancellation is for the better.