The Killing's Joel Kinnaman Rumored To Be The Next RoboCop

With Hollywood remaking so many movies now, almost none of the classics are safe, and 1987's RoboCop is no exception. The reboot has had many rumored faces attached to it's leading role, including Chris Pine (Star Trek), Russell Crowe (Gladiator), and Michael Fassbender (X-Men First Class). Now, Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman's name can be added to the long list of contenders for our future RoboCop.

Deadline reports that MGM has just made an offer to Kinnaman to star in their upcoming film. Kinnaman  is probably best known for playing detective Stephen Holder on AMC's The Killing. He's also had roles in last December's alien thriller Darkest Hour, the Oscar nominated The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and most recently in the Denzel Washington action film Safe House. Kinnaman was even on Kenneth Branagh's shortlist to star as Thor, and is attached to the upcoming film Arthur and Lancelot as Lancelot himself. So as you can see, Kinnaman is becoming a pretty popular guy in Hollywood.

To be honest, Kinnaman isn't the first to come to mind when thinking of someone to replace Peter Weller as RoboCop. But then again, maybe a different type of RoboCop is just what this film needs, and just what MGM is going for judging by the previous actors they've considered. I haven't seen enough of Kinnaman's work to say he'd be a great Alex Murphy/RoboCop, but as long as he's on par with Weller's performance, he should be fine. My personal choices for RoboCop would probably be Aaron Eckhart or Patrick Wilson, but that's for more of a Weller imitation than a fresh take.

The Brazilian director José Padilha is helming the film, who is best known for his work on the Elite Squad film series (Which first film is still the highest grossing film of all time in Brazil). The Elite Squad films are a bit similar to RoboCop, also being police action dramas. The films is also being scripted by Gran Torino writer Nick Schenk, so it seems to be in good hands. Padilha has discussed his approach on the RoboCop story before, and here is what he had to say on it:

“Wars in the future are going to be fought with drones. We won’t send a plane with a pilot in, it will be drone. It’s getting that way now and ten years from now that’s how wars are going to be fought. But what if a drone goes wrong – who is to blame then? Do you blame the drone? And that problem asks if you can you consider a robot guilty of a crime. Or is it the corporation that made the robot that is guilty? How do you fight back against drones when you don’t have drones?”

The RoboCop reboot will be joining a number of remakes which take place in the future, such as this years Total Recall with Colin Farrell, and Judge Dredd starring Karl Urban. The RoboCop film still has a long way to go, and there's still no telling whether original villains Dick Jones and Clarence Boddicker will return, or a whole new story will be taken on. None the less, there's no doubt some changes have to be made for RoboCop to still feel futuristic, and I would love to see these awesome suit designs:

What do you think of Joel Kinnaman as Robocop? Are you excited for a reboot?