After House ended its series run earlier this year, Hugh Laurie was to make the jump to films starting off with a role as the villain in Jose Padilha’s Robocop. Now reports are coming in confirming that he won’t be in the film after all. Jeff Sneider of Variety reports that Laurie never had his deal finalized, even though he was in talks to star.

Sneider wrote: “HUGH LAURIE definitely out of ROBOCOP reboot, not that he was ever “˜in.'”

As to who his replacement could be, Deadline says that Clive Owen is in talks to play the rich CEO of OmniCorp, the organization that turns Detroit police officer Alex Murphy from a near-dead man into a half-human half-robot law enforcer. Of course this is done to make a profit and not protect the citizens of Detroit.

No details were provided as to why Lauire didn’t take the role, but Owen possibly filling in as his replacement sounds promising.

Although Laurie is out of Robocop, we should be seeing a lot more of him on the big screen since he is no longer working on House. The series was a huge hit for Fox, but it also prevented him from some real big screen work. He’s had many cinematic supporting roles over the years (Hop, Monsters Vs. Aliens, and The Oranges), so Robocop was to have been one of his biggest roles on a movie screen.

Whether or not MGM and Padilha are able to lock Owen in for the villain role remains to be seen, its just a little bit disappointing that we won’t get to see Laurie in the film. But I am sure he will have no trouble finding another gig elsewhere, and hopefully we’ll be seeing him as a villain soon.

[Source: Variety | Deadline]