Rebooting Robocop as an origin story seemed like a terrible idea, but then MGM hired the director of the pants-poopingly awesome Elite Squad 2 (Jose Padilha) to direct, and suddenly it like only a mildly terrible idea. (Pants Poopingly is Benedict Cumberbatch’s cousin, by the way).  This week, they hired Gran Torino writer Nick Schenk to work on the script. Which is, uh… good?

“DROP IT, GOOK.”

MGM has hired Gran Torino screenwriter Nick Schenk to work on the screenplay for RoboCop.
The CAA-repped Schenk had been working with Padilha, who co-wrote and directed Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, on the action thriller Tri-Border. The writer also has the original drama The Judge set up at Warner Bros. with Team Downey producing. [THR]

They say he was hired to “work on” the screenplay, but as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been another writer since David Self when Darren Aronofsky was still attached, so I’m assuming this script will be totally new. As far as Gran Torino, it was such a mixed bag of a movie, it’s hard to know whether it was only good because Eastwood called people “gook” 12 million times, or if it would’ve been ten times better if only old-man Eastwood would’ve let the first-time actor Hmong kids he hired off the street do more than one rehearsal take before he broke for dinner at 3:30 pm.

FUN FACT: This is neither here nor there, but Schenk holds a previous writing credit on a DVD called “The Best of Dr. Sphincter.”