Best known for his astonishing portrayal of profanity-hating stick-up man Omar Little in HBO's The Wire, Michael Kenneth Williams looks set to play a character on the other side of the law in upcoming **Robocop **remake.
Earmarked to play Alex Murphy's partner in the film — a role filled by Nancy Allen's Anne Lewis in the original — he'll be one of Detroit's boys in blue, joining a cast that boasts such names as Hugh Laurie, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson and Abbie Cornish.
The fatally wounded cop that becomes RoboCop, officer Alex Murphy, is being played by relative newcomer Joel Kinnaman, with Oldman playing a OmniCorp scientist. Other roles in James Vanderbilt's (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Losers, Zodiac, Welcome To The Jungle) script remaining shrouded in secrecy.
The man who knows all — aside from Vanderbilt, naturally — is director José Padilha, the Rio-born, Oxford-educated director of Elite Squad and Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, who is also set to participate in a Rio-based version of New York, I Love You / Paris Je T'aime, Rio, Eu Te Amo later next year.
The second coming of Robocop will be August 9, 2013.