And Another

Samuel Bayer’s not the only one fighting back against studio pressure for 3-D — the Robocop remake ran into trouble when MGM wanted Darren Aronofsky to make the flick in 3-D. (It’s presumably the first time a studio wanted Aronofsky to make one of his movies deeper.) Aronofsky argued, preferring to stick with practical and creative effects and citing the success of The Fountain’s alternative effects methodology (macrophotography, underwater shooting, fluid dynamics, and other non-CGI wizardry). After Brad Pitt had a well-publicized walkoff from The Fountain, it was eventually reconceived at half the budget. Aronofsky and his crew, looking for a new outlook on the picture, accomplished wonders visually with a relative minimum of both computer-generated imagery and money.

Speaking of a minimum of money, the teaser poster pictured is apparently legitimate. No, I can’t believe it either. Is it unfair to pit Robocop vs. Terminator? They’ve tussled in the past. So we’ve got this godawful 1992esque Robocop…thing, which wouldn’t be out of place at We Have Lasers!!!!, versus the rather forward-thinking Terminator: Salvation motion poster (see it in motion here). It’s like comparing the production values of Robocop 3 and Terminator 2. Though to be fair, it’s also like comparing their respective budgets.

Also on the topic of budgets: the 3-D debate wasn’t the primary holdup with Robocop. That’d be MGM restructuring, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and possibly heading toward sale in the face of almost four billion dollars in debts. Writer David Self maintains that both he and Aronofsky are still attached, and that the film could proceed as planned once MGM is sold, bailed out, or otherwise restructured. Knowing that Aronofsky and MGM were at odds, nobody would be surprised to see him dropped from the project when MGM finally gets to move forward with it. I’d like to see the Aronofsky version, but he’s not hurting for work, with four upcoming directorial projects in addition to Black Swan, a just-wrapped drama featuring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, and Winona Ryder.

Don’t worry about David Self either. He’s got another writing project scheduled for 2011 besides Robocop. That’d be Deathlok, a fairly unpopular Marvel Comics property about a man who is transformed, without his approval, into a unstoppable cyborg agent for an ethically questionable corporation. He’s set at odds with the corporation, questioning their purpose and yearning to be with his family again. However — and this is crucial — the human/metal division of Deathlok’s face is vertical, whereas Robocop’s is horizontal.