After two sequels, a made-for-TV series of projects, and a 2014 reboot which underperformed, RoboCop may be back on the horizon courtesy of Neill Blomkamp.
The District 9 helmer is teaming up with MGM and the duo behind creating the character, Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, to direct an official sequel to be entitled RoboCop Returns. Both Neumeier and Miner will serve as producers and executive producers and their original script is getting a rewrite by Justin Rhodes.
Blomkamp had this to say about the idea of the film and to why he liked the 1987 original:
“The original definitely had a massive effect on me as a kid. I loved it then and it remains a classic at the end of 20th Century sci-fi catalog, with real meaning under the surface. Hopefully, that is something we can get closer to in making of a sequel. That is my goal here. What I connected to as a kid has evolved over time. At first, the consumerism, materialism and Reaganomics, that ’80s theme of America on steroids, came through most strongly. But as I’ve gotten older, the part that really resonated with me is identity and the search for identity. As long as the human component is there, a good story can work in any time period, it’s not locked into a specific place in history. What’s so cool about RoboCop is that like good Westerns, sci-fi films, and dramas, the human connection is really important to a story well told. What draws me now is someone searching for their lost identity, taken away at the hands of people who are benefiting from it, and seeing his memory jogged by events. That is most captivating. The other thing I am excited about is the chance to work again with Justin Rhodes. He has added elements that are pretty awesome, to a sequel that was set in the world of Verhoeven. This is a movie I would love to watch.”
The original 1987 film, directed by Dutch legend Paul Verhoeven, starred Peter Weller as Alex Murphy, a Detroit police officer who after being mortally wounded by a dead criminal gang is resurrected into a cybernetic officer known as RoboCop. Weller would only return for the 1990 sequel with Robert John Burke replacing him for 1991’s RoboCop 3, only to be followed by Page Fletcher in the 2001 mini series RoboCop: Prime Directives. Joel Kinnaman played Murphy in a 2014 reboot that didn’t perform as well as the original.
More as this continues.
H/T: Dread Central
WorldFilmGeek 