Now In Production: Robocop Returns
Part machine, part man, all cop: What was once known as Alex Murphy is stomping back to the big screen. Robocop Returns is the name, and Neill Blomkamp is the director.
This newly proposed movie would throw out Robocops 2 and 3 and set the story directly after the first movie. This seems to be a growing trend in Hollywood lately, with the upcoming Halloween and Terminator films utilizing the same magic eraser to eliminate yards of unwanted continuity. Wish the same could be said for Alien (and Blomkamp was attached to that one!)
This time, though, there’s a second reason: the script for Robocop Returns came first. It was originally written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, creators of Robocop as well as writers of the first film. It would’ve been made, but the 1988 writer’s strike halted production. In the end, the studio wound up releasing Frank Miller’s take on Robocop in 1990.
So it’ll be interesting to see what this resurrected sequel winds up doing. Blomkamp is over the moon to be directing it, telling Deadline the first Robocop “had a massive effect” on him as a youngster. ““I loved it then and it remains a classic in 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’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.”
Robocop Returns currently has no release date.