Hugh Laurie has spent the last eight years playing the jerkoff, super-genius Dr. Gregory House on the hit Fox series, House. While his performance has always been pitch perfect, it was a show that became stale a few years ago, so it's been a little surprising that he hasn't made more of an effort to get his movie career rolling. He's been managed to find time for plenty of animated flicks, but as far as live-action goes, it's basically just Street Kings and the festival darling, The Oranges. The latter of those doesn't seem like it'll ever get released.
House has always been one really bad trip away from becoming a pretty terrible dude, so playing a genuinely bad dude shouldn't be too difficult. He'll get a chance to do just that in Jose Padilha's Robocop remake, taking on the role of the evil CEO of OmniCorp, the corporation that creates the cyborg for its own gain. If the role is anything like the one played by Ronny Cox in the previous film, it should be a fun one. I wonder if Laurie will keep the American accent? Nah, he sounds much more devious in his native English.
MGM is working wonders on Robocop right now, with Joel Kinnaman, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, and Abbie Cornish on board. Look for it to hit theaters on August 9th 2013. [Variety]
