Darren Aronofsky's departure for pastures Wolverine, coupled with MGM's financial woes meant that, for a while there, it didn't seem like we'd be seeing officer Alex Murphy re-cyborged anytime soon. Now though, hot on the heels of Jose Padilha being targeted to direct, comes the news that Robocop** has also apprehended a screenwriter, in the form of Josh Zetumer.
Zetumer is quickly building a reputation for himself in Hollywood, despite the fact that, to date, none of his work has made it to the screen. He had a crack at Dune for Peter Berg, wrote a fourth Bourne before that series was steered in another direction, and his IRA spy thriller I****nfiltrator made the Black List and may yet happen under the aegis of Leonardo DiCaprio and his Appian Way production company.
So despite a dearth of actual films, Zetumer already has a history of intelligently actiony thrillers, with a bit of sci-fi thrown in for good measure. Ample chops, it would appear, to take on the satirical story of a murdered and rebuilt cop taking on crime at street and corporate level in a dystopian Detroit. (Are you following the saga of Detroit's proposed Robocop statue, by the way? Have you seen Peter Weller's video?)
The question of whether Robocop needs remaking at all is moot at this point: at least with a buzzy young screenwriter and an interesting director (Padila was behind the Brazilian smash-hit Elite Squad films) it's taking intriguing shape. Which is just as well, since if they screw it up there will be... trouble.