Meet The New RoboCop Joel Kinnaman

By Joshua Tyler | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

A few weeks ago we heard that actor Joel Kinnaman was in talks to be the man behind the metal in the upcoming remake of RoboCop. Now it’s a lock. Kinnaman has closed his deal with MGM and will indeed be playing the part of Alex J. Murphy/RoboCop, first made famous by the great Peter Weller in the 1987 RoboCop.

So who the heck is Joel Kinnaman?

Kinnaman is a 32-year-old Swedish actor who’s been working steadily in things no one has seen since 2002. Or maybe you saw him on TV’s The Killing or in Safe House opposite Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Most recently Joel had a huge role in the box office flop alien invasion flick The Darkest Hour where he played a cowardly Swedish tourist and, incidentally, the only interesting character in the entire film. Kinnaman looks like this:

Joel Kinnaman in The Darkest Hour

And here’s Kinnaman doing his thing on The Killing

Likely more important than his resume is his jawline. It’s the only thing you’ll see through most of the movie and, incidentally, it looks a lot like Peter Weller’s…

Peter Weller as Robocop

You can’t tell from the pictures but Joel is also a pretty big, tall, broad guy. He’ll look good in the robot suit. This isn’t a bad pick to play the part, assuming you think it’s a good idea to remake this movie and recast anyone other than Peter Weller as RoboCop at all. Since you’re reading this site and presumably care about science fiction, like me, you probably do not. After all, it worked so well for The Thing.

Like it or not, Joel Kinnaman is now the future of law enforcement.