Corona | Coming Attractions

Brazilian-born director Jose Padilha is talking with MGM about becoming the latest job hire on the studio's RoboCop remake. Padilha is cresting on the good vibes he's earned from making two gritty action-crime movies called The Elite Squad and which have become hits with South American film audiences.

After finding itself in bankruptcy hell, MGM got a cash infusion of $500 million dollars last December, giving it the drive to get production resuming on Skyfall and The Hobbit. Now that the studio has those two highly anticipated films moving ahead, it's turning attention to other properties that had gotten stalled while in their credit crunch like RoboCop and the remake of Poltergeist.

Darren Aronofsky had been linked to the RoboCop remake for a couple of years before he left to go make The Wrestler. MGM tried to woo 30 Days of Night director David Slade but the Twilight sparkle motion people at Summit Entertainment got to him first and he made Eclipse for them. If MGM can saddle up Padilha and likely get a new draft of the screenplay done right, we could have a go picture about a year from now.

In their story, THR says that MGM is committed to making the RoboCop remake at a budget of $80 million dollars.

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