Hugh Laurie is ‘in negotiations’ to play the baddie in the upcoming RoboCop remake, which is an instant tick in the ‘hellsyeah’ column.

He may have been grumpy as Greg House, but never truly evil, and if he’s reprising Kurtwood Smith’s Clarence Boddicker (“bitches, leave”) then we’re on board.

Gary Oldman is playing a character named Norton, identified with Miguel Ferrer’s role as Morton, the exec who builds RoboCop, so there’s a good bet that the remake will follow the original reasonably closely. Joel Kinnaman will play Murphy/RoboCop.

Samuel L Jackson has also signed on as Pat Novak, and Naomi Watts is in negotiations to play Murphy’s wife.

Jackson’s role has been described as a ‘powerful force’ in the RoboCop universe, so it’s a fair bet he’ll probably be playing Ronny Cox’s role of ‘the old man’ Dick Jones, the head of OCP (or the new version of OCP).

If none of this makes any sense, then you haven’t seen Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 classic, and you’ve disappointed us all. Please go see it. It’s really, really good, and once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand why all the old nerds are understandably perturbed by talk of a remake.

Robocop  begins shooting September 1, and is scheduled to release August 9, 2013.

José Padilha will direct – if you haven’t seen the Elite Squad movies, then you’ll be forgiven for not being too excited by the remake. Go watch them, and them come back to us. Yes. It might actually be a good remake.

Fingers crossed. If it works out, then yes, I would buy that for a dollar.

Here’s Kurtwood Smith doing his thing – imagine Hugh Laurie unleashing full House evil in this role!

(the full sequence is a bit traumatic, so here’s a one-liner that’s breathtaking)

ADDENDUM: Dammit! The Hollywood Reporter’s Heatvision Blog says “Laurie will play the evil and ultra-rich CEO of Omnicorp, the company that makes Robocop.” Which means he’ll be playing a version of Ronny Cox’s Dick Jones. Samuel L Jackson will play a ‘media mogul’.

Still. Looking forward to the ED 209 Boardmeeting.