Aronofsky’s ‘RoboCop’ - I’d Buy That For a Dollar
I yawned when MGM announced it might reboot RoboCop last spring (and don’t even get me started on the execrable Red Dawn) and I didn’t pay much attention when Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for Dream, The Fountain and the upcoming The Wrestler) was tossed around as a name, but word today that he has signed on to direct kind of turns things around 180 degrees.
No details have been revealed but David Self (Road to Perdition and the upcoming Wolfman) is also attached to write the screenplay.
Remember kids: Stay out of trouble.
Siskel & Ebert review the original RoboCop (1987)
Source: Variety
Filed under: Miscellaneous
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- In Ebert’s Own Words
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- Loose Ends: 9/10/08
Finally, a thread that gives me an excuse to praise THE FOUNTAIN, which is one of the great films of recent years. It split critics down the middle, but I do believe it will one day be revalued as the visionary and revelatory film that it is.
Clint Mansell’s score is one of the most achingly beautiful on record, and it serves as the emotional underpinning of a glorious phantasmagoric feast for the senses.
This was one time that I agreed with Kris Tapley, who had this film in a first-place tie with INLAND EMPIRE in 2006. After this and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, anything Aronofsky does must be intensely anticipated.
I loved The Fountain also Sam, but I only saw it once. I was horrified to see how it was savaged by so many critics who just laughed at it.
Call me a sap, but I found it very moving.
You are no sap Sir, I assure you. Just as many critics called it a masterpiece as trashed it. It was one of the most moving films of the past decade, methinks.
Somehow this just feels like a thud, and the reason, I think, is because Aronofsky was the guy who was just about to be given the key to Wayne Manor and Batman, and then that fell through and Nolan was anointed. So, this somehow feels like it’s just Aronofsky fulfilling his dreams of rebooting a long-dead (and in this case, very long-dead) franchise featuring an armor-wearing crimefighter.
I still think Pi is Aronofsky’s best film. ‘Tis not a popular opinion.
I wish I could share your enthusiasm for The Fountain. It missed both my heart and head. But I admired its ambition. Films like this readily divide opinion.
For the screening of The Fountain, I had that seat, the one in the theater that is directly in the center of the screen. From the standpoint of the imagery and Clint Mansell’s music, it was great.
The Fountain has an interesting intellectual bend and a unique way of visualizing it. But it took so long to get the project going that eventually, I think, Aronofsky wrote way too expositorily to make it fully accessible. Plus, the acting is overdone. And Aronofsky doesn’t seem to know how to use his girlfriend, beyond the fact that the camera loves her.
As far as Aronofsky doing Robocop …..
I’ll forget it’s even happening until I have to see it.
That’s pretty much my own take K.Bowen.
I’ll add that art seeking to touch the heart and evoke metaphysical and spiritual reverie will always navigate a very fine line between inspiration and banality.
“I’ll add that art seeking to touch the heart and evoke metaphysical and spiritual reverie will always navigate a very fine line between inspiration and banality.”
Beautiful said, sartre, and surely a prime reason why the film has divided the critics as much as it did.
I though Hugh Jackman gave a brave and electrifying performance, but I can well understand that for anyone the film didn’t work for, the performance will be reviled as going over the top.
The Fountain’s on my Netflix list, so someday I’ll be able to add my half-cent to the discussion. But, yes, sartre, that was very well-put. I own Requiem for a Dream, but it’s the only of his movies I’ve seen.
Not sure how I feel about the RoboCop revival. I’d be more interested if he were starting an original sci-fi franchise.
There is some small irony here to the fact that Frank Miller wrote for the screenplay to the first Robocop sequel, which the studio then hacked to pieces and had rewritten. This led to Miller swearing off Hollywood completely until Robert Rodriguez and Zach Snyder showed him that there were ways to make a movie his way in Hollywood and not be meddled with (you decide if the results merit their efforts).
Now Aronofsky, who tried like hell to remake the Batman franchise with an adaption of Miller’s excellent Batman: Year One comic book mini-series is taking over the failed franchise that Miller left behind in disgust. And of course, Nolan is credited with Batman Begins, but even that is a very loose version of the B:YO story concept Aronosfsky tried to sell (in vain). I still kinda wish Nolan had adhered more closely to Miller’s original comic, which was very gritty and noirish (ie, no ninjas).
It seems Aronofsky has a talent for being the wrong guy at the right time. I wonder how this Robocop movie will work out for him. I think he could do something great with it, but I have a feeling he’s going to be fighting an uphill battle once again. His artistic desires often seem to get in the way of the studio’s demands for popcorn.
I tend to forget that the original RoboCop kind of flew in under the radar and Verhoeven was probably allowed to pretty much do whatever he wanted within his limited budget. After it was a hit….well you decide whether the studio meddled sequels are any good.
It would be the same thing here. As much as I like Aranofsky (The Fountain was awesome, sorry), the studio will crush him or he’ll come up with something they don’t know how to market (ala Speed Racer, Where the Wild Things Are).
While we’re discussing science fiction, I’d love to see a studio do what Ned Tanen and Universal did in the wake of Easy Rider in the early ’70s, which is basically give promising filmmakers like a Monte Hellman, Peter Fonda or George Lucas final cut, as long as they work for scale and keep their budgets under a certain figure. $10 million in today’s money would be about right.
This is how you’d find the Verhoevens and the RoboCops of tomorrow. If you’re remaking a movie as blatantly bad as Red Dawn, all that tells me is that Hollywood has given up on the future and the studios as we know them will not exist 20 years from now.
I kind of feel like this could be another Aeon Flux - I mean, we’ve never seen Aronofsky do an action movie, there’s a little bit of satire in Requiem for a Dream but just a touch, really…I think that this is either going to be a real mindblowing surprise or a total fiasco. Aronofsky has done best when he’s been working small (if The Fountain had had a bigger budget it would have just lost more money) and I don’t see how he can meld with a studio franchise movie.
“I think that this is either going to be a real mindblowing surprise or a total fiasco.” Either way it will be more interesting than Transformers 2. Sign me up.
I totally agree Joe. I would love to see a series of risky $10 million pictures from interesting, creative people. And not just Sci-Fi. All genres.
I’d like every studio to turn their $200 million movies into 4 $50 million movies, but dammit, they won’t do it!
That’s what I’d like as well. Too bad the studios won’t do it. It’s probably the greatest downside of the colossal success of an Iron Man or Dark Knight: more studio execs get the idea in their head that they need a smoking hot readymade franchise with a 200 million dollar price tag and they’re set for a season. (Not that things haven’t been going in that direction for a long time, like thirty years…)
If you’re going to sell the masses hamburgers, at least make them gourmet ones like TDK.
Oooh, Sartre, obviously you enjoyed your cinematic meal.
I kinda agree Joe, although I think we can up that figure to $30-40 mil. Heck, most comedies with no special effects or stunts clock in closer to $20-30 mil these days, depending on director and cast.
As for Aronofsky and his potential for a fiasco, I kinda agree but I could also see him pulling it off as long as he isn’t trying to paint the broad-side of a barn with his political metaphors. The one thing Aronofsky still hasn’t proven is his ability to do comedy of any real sort and my hope would be that he isn’t going to try and do Requiem for a Cyborg.
As has been mentioned though, this has a lot more promise than a Red Dawn remake. WTF? We’re going to be invaded by Al Qaeda? I saw that movie: it was called Invasion USA.
Prospects for a Red Dawn remake aren’t good when I hated the original.