Short Circuit Remake Director Talks Reimagined Johnny 5

Nowadays everyone’s setting out to make everything oh-so serious. Superheroes have all gone darker, and now the remake of the 1986 family pic “Short Circuit” is following suit.

Speaking to The LA Times today, director Tim Hill (“Alvin and the Chipmunks”) revealed his plans to reinvent the cutesy robot protagonist Johnny 5 into something more “menacing”. Hill said: “I’m tempted to go back and grab the original. But I think it has to be closer to what modern design actually is. There are computer models and labs developing real machines like this… You’ve got to find the balance between something fierce and something endearing. The original was cute. But no one was threatened by it.”

He hinted that the new Johnny 5 will also be “born out of modern warfare technology, particularly that used in unmanned drones”.

Hill elaborated: “The thing that makes it so relevant is that we live in this age of robots, particularly when it comes to war,” Hill continues. “We have drones that do our fighting for us, do all these jobs men and women don’t want to do. And that’s what makes this so interesting — things like this moment in the story when Johnny realizes he’s going to be disassembled and contemplates death, and whether it’s right to terminate someone else.”

“Short Circuit” still does not have a confirmed cast or start date yet, but a script is already in place, written by Matt Lieberman.