Gary Oldman signs up for RoboCop remake

Gary Oldman has signed on for the Robocop remake. Photo / Supllied

Don't write off the upcoming RoboCop reboot just yet, the project's just scored itself a genuine acting heavyweight.

Gary Oldman has signed on to star opposite Joel Kinnaman in MGM's remake of Paul Verhoeven's classic 1987 sci-fi action film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Dark Knight Rises will take on the role of Norton, a scientist who transforms Alex Murphy (Kinnaman), a Detroit cop killed on duty, into a cyborg law enforcer known as RoboCop.

Norton then "finds himself torn between the ideals of the machine trying to rediscover its humanity and the callous needs of a corporation."

Kinnaman, star of TV drama The Killing, dished on the reboot in a recent interview with MTV News.

"RoboCop is going to be a lot more human," Kinnaman said. "The first movie is one of my favorite movies. I love it. Of course, Verhoeven has that very special tone.

"It's not going to have that tone. It's a re-imagination of it. There's a lot of stuff from the original. There are some details and throwbacks, but this version is a much better acting piece, for Alex Murphy and especially when he is RoboCop. It's much more challenging."

Kinnaman also said that Robo will be getting a makeover.

"It's not going to be jaw action. They're still working on the suit and how it's going to look, but the visor is going to be see-through," he said. "You're going to see his eyes."

The Jose Padilha-directed film is expected to start shooting in Toronto this September.

Padilha explained his plans for the movie late last year.

"RoboCop the first movie was fantastic," he said in an interview with ComingSoon.net.

"But even if there was no movie, the concept of RoboCop is brilliant, first because it lends itself to a lot of social criticism, but also because it poses a question, 'To when do you lose you humanity?' The way it does that is by replacing body parts with machine parts, and that's very smart because guess what? It's going to happen!

"I have my take on it," he continued, "And I can tell you this: In the first RoboCop when Alex Murphy is shot, gunned down, then you see some hospitals and stuff and then you cut to him as RoboCop. My movie is between those two cuts."

He continued: "How do you make RoboCop? How do you slowly bring a guy to be a robot? How do you actually take humanity out of someone and how do you program a brain, so to speak, and how does that affect an individual?"

The remake is due for release in August 2013.

Watch a trailer for the original RoboCop movie below:

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