Hugh Laurie in talks to play villain in Robocop remake

Hugh Laurie is in negotiations to join what is shaping up to be an impressive cast for Elite Squad director José Padilha's upcoming Robocop remake, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

If he signs on to play the main villain the British actor will join Joel Kinnaman, star of the US remake of Danish crime series The Killing, Samuel L Jackson and Gary Oldman. Kinnaman is taking the title role, with Jackson as a powerful and charismatic media mogul and Oldman as the scientist who helps bring the cyborg crimefighter to life.

Laurie's role is described as the evil and ultra-rich CEO of Omnicorp, the company that makes Robocop. US character actor Ronny Cox played a similar role in Paul Verhoeven's original 1987 film as the head of OCP (Omni Consumer Products) which had won the contract to oversee the policing of crime-ridden future Detroit. There are also suggestions that Sucker Punch's Abbie Cornish is in line to play the remake's female lead, the wife of cop Alex Murphy. In the original film, Murphy (Peter Weller) becomes Robocop after being killed by a gang of criminals.

Filming is set to kick off in Toronto this September and the movie currently has a release date of 9 August 2013. It will be beaten into cinemas by another high-profile remake of a much-loved Verhoeven original, Len Wiseman's reworking of 1990's Total Recall. Colin Farrell takes the role made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger and the film hits US cinemas on 3 August 2012, arriving in the UK almost a month later on 29 August.

Brazilian film-maker Padilha is best known for the two films in his Elite Squad series about a special police unit operating within the drug-ravaged favelas of Rio de Janeiro.