Second Oddest Film Rumour Ever: Aronofsky To Direct RoboCop Remake

Like many people we enjoyed the original RoboCop, except for one thing - the ending wasn't depressing enough.

True, it was exciting enough when RoboCop stabbed that bad guy with the glasses, and touching when he referred to himself by his human name afterwards, but that's hardly very depressing, is it?

Are we the only ones who wanted to see RoboCop, his arms septic and withered from years of crippling heroin addiction, putting on a soul-destroying lesbian dildo show for a gaggle of sleazy businessmen?

Perhaps we are. But we always get what we want, which is why we're not completely surprised to hear that Darren Aronofsky - the director of Requiem For A Dream - is in talks to direct a new version of RoboCop. Seriously.

Someone in Hollywood should probably send out a team of scientists to test the town's water supply, because we think it might have been tainted with mercury.

That's the only logical explanation for all the genuinely crackpot decisions that have been made there recently.

First it was announced that Robert Downey Jr would be playing a beefed-up Sherlock Holmes in a movie directed by Guy Ritchie of all people, and now - before anyone's had time to digest that news and realise how awful that sounds - Darren Aronofsky's been mentioned in a report discussing a new RoboCop film. Look:

MGM toppers Harry Sloan and Mary Parent announced the [Red Dawn] remake — along with a big-budget rebuild of "RoboCop," which director Darren Aronofsky among others has recently been in to discuss — in May at the Festival de Cannes.

Darren Aronofsky, of course, is synonymous with two things. One is his strong vision - Requiem For A Dream is a beauty to watch, even if you'll probably try to kill yourself 15 minutes after it's finished - and the other is The Fountain, his ambitious but utterly befuddling 2006 movie about, um, a tree in a bubble in space. Or something.

So this talk of Darren Aronofsky directing a RoboCop remake is either genius or the stupidest thing we've ever heard.

There's every chance that, if this actually happens, Aronofsky's RoboCop will arbitrarily flick backwards and forwards through time, contain a lengthy midsection about slow-motion cell division and finish with an ending so heavy in oblique symbolism that people will think they're watching a 1980s advert for fancy aftershave.

No, actually, screw it - we do want to see Darren Aronofsky direct the RoboCop remake. Not only would it be a refreshingly brave decision for a Hollywood studio to take, but it'd probably mean that Rachel Weisz would be in it, which we're completely OK with.

What's more, if Darren Aronofsky gets to direct RoboCop, than we're one step closer to our dream of seeing David Lynch direct a remake of that film where Tim Allen turns into Father Christmas.