MGM are, and have been for many years, dealing with significant financial debts, to the tune of almost $4bn. With concerns about the company’s solvency, a recent conference call debated whether the studio should file for bankruptcy in a bid to gain back some of the otherwise lost money.

Should this happen, MGM’s assets might be sold to cover the debts, including the rights to the James Bond franchise, the potential RoboCop remake could never see the light of day. This would inevitably delay Bond 23, and who knows what else.

MGM’s current plan is to convince creditors to waiver interest payments until January 2010, with that money instead going to fund new movies. There’s a lot up in the air right now, but we’ll keep you posted.

Some rumors started circulating the net that Darren Aronofsky was off the RoboCop reboot project, AICN quickly contacted Darren for some confirmation:

So I put the question to Darren, and promptly got a response from him saying simply, “No, Still on it.” – he also stated that he’d let me know as things progressed, but there were no new details at this time.

Whilst not strictly Robocop movie news, this video gives us an insight into the director’s (Darren Aronofsky) movie making techniques.

Darren Aronofsky is a screenwriter, director, and producer, who most recently directed and produced the two-time Golden Globe winning and Oscar-nominated film, The Wrestler. In 1996, he began work on his first feature film, Pi, a psychological scifi thriller which landed him an award at the Sundance Film Festival. Aronofsky quickly became a favorite among indie-film fans. In 2000, he directed and wrote the screenplay to Requiem for a Dream which earned a Best Actress Oscar-nomination. Aronofsky attended Harvard University, where his senior thesis film, Supermarket Sweep, became a National Student Academy Award Finalist. After graduating Harvard in 1991, he attended the American Film Institute.

Talking to MTV on the Golden Globes red carpet RoboCop director Aronofsky spoke about the reboot of the franchise. Looks like Aronofsky wants to take the character in a new direction, exploring this new technological era we find ourselves in:

“The thing that’s exciting for a filmmaker like me about [“RoboCop”] is that it’s not as iconic as some of the other titles out there, so there’s room to do stuff with it,” Aronofsky told MTV News. “It had incredible insight into the future.”

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“The world has so changed—how much every one of us is somewhat of a cyborg at this point with cell phones hanging out of us, with implants of all different types.” Aronofsky posed. In the same breath, however, he cautioned that the project is still in its early stages. “I think there’s a lot of really timely ideas in it. If it comes together, it’ll be great, but who knows?”

As for a possible cameo by original star Peter Weller, Aronofsky backed away from any commitments. “I can’t make any promises,” he assured, “but I’ll show as much respect to the fans as I can.”

Following the Aronofsky announcement MTV caught up with the producers Brad Fischer and Mike Medavoy to answer the rush of new questions.

Sequel?

When quizzed about the fourth Robocop movie’s integration into the existing universe the producers stated:

“None of [the earlier films are] going to be canonical, as a matter of fact,” Fischer revealed. “I wouldn’t say it’s a direct sequel.”
“Definitely not a sequel,” Medavoy added, saying he preferred the term “reimagining.”

Why make a new movie?

But why a “Robocop” reboot at all? Medavoy, who worked on the earlier three films, said it’s because the themes explored in the first film, of fading humanity in the face of corporate and commercial omnipresence, have only become more relevant in the intervening 15 years.

“The themes of machines and technology, for instance, that’s certainly become even more prevalent today in terms of man giving up certain things to his creations and his technology and his reliance to that. It’s pretty provocative stuff,” he said. “You’ve got people today with all kinds of different implants and mechanical implants. Where does that person become no longer human? After the first one? After 50 percent of the brain gets replaced? A lot of the themes that we dealt with in the original are still very interesting to us.”

Rating?

So many remakes and sequels have been dumbed down to a younger audience, there’s a big fear that the new Robocop movie may be bundled into the PG-13 group with all the nitty-gritty-grind-n-gore cut out. This is what Medavoy had to say on that,

“Well I was involved with the original ‘Robocop,’ and it was an R, and the likelihood is that this will be an R. It’s likely to be an R unless the director cuts back on some of it.”

No details on the plot were announced.

In July 2008 at Comic-con MGM announced to the world that Darren Aronofsky, (director of The Wrestler, The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream an Pi) shall be helming the 2010 recreation of Robocop. Screenwriter David Self (Road to Perdition) will be penning the script.

Mary Parent, MGM’s chairman said: “Darren is undeniably one of the most talented, original and visceral filmmakers, and David is one of the greatest writers in Hollywood. All of us at MGM couldn’t be more excited.” Whilst producers David Thwaites and Brad Fischer added: “With a filmmaker of Darren Aronofsky’s vision and imagination and a writer of David Self’s caliber, we are poised to bring to the screen an entertaining and provocative film, which will now be under the creative guidance of two of the best storytellers working in our industry today.”

Now all we need is Clint Mansell to do the score… . All of Aronosky’s movies are pure gold, needless to say I am very excited about this movie.

Aronofsky’s previous work

Pi

Requiem for a Dream

The Fountain

The Wrestler

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