ROBOCOP - Cancelled Sequel & Reboots

robocop is an action-packed science fiction classic that would introduce the world to what is now one of cinema's most recognizable characters robocop was released in july 1987 directed by paul verhoeven from a script written by edward neumeyer and michael miner the successful sleeper hit was a movie that when you scratched beneath the shiny metallic surface you saw a balanced hybrid of nuance and subtext of social satire political commentary futuristic techno fears and artificial intelligence there were statements on law enforcement privatized military and the business corporatization of a dystopian detroit tonally there was a darkly dry sense of humor interspersed with brutality and emotional melancholy it was a messianic allegory it explored the connection between memory and existence and of course it was a popcorn movie about a robot spinning a gun around his trigger finger before shooting down psychotic criminals the film was an instant success the story of murdered cop alex murphy played by peter weller being resurrected into a robotic law enforcer without any initial memory of his previous life would earn over 53 million dollars in box office receipts from a production budget of just 13.4 million the studio behind the film orion pictures had made the terminator which was a genre-defining property and they hoped robocop would stand alongside it and surely spawn a franchise the design of the half-man half robot by effects team led by rob boutin was now a recognizable and iconic figure that appealed to younger viewers as well as their parents robocop screenwriters were asked to repeat the process for an immediately planned robocop 2. a mere eight weeks after robocop's release the screenwriters were given three months to come up with a new story and screenplay for the sequel neumeyer would later say of this moment that i didn't know that they were actually in financial trouble and they needed this franchise they needed another hit movie as soon as possible they turned around and said okay let's do it again let's go fast and if you don't go fast enough you're fired that was my first experience with studio politics and these were people who were pleased with what i'd done it was a lot of fighting over success too i hadn't heard about that i hadn't experienced it yet and so here we were and then there's a writer's strike in 1987 there was a rider strike that lasted for five months we were high profile writers obviously and i just had a child and was thankful for the health insurance orion was telling me i had to work and turn in stuff and we said we can't because we're on strike and we don't want to scab they said okay then you're fired and we were off the project the writer would be replaced by comic books maestro frank miller who at the time was working on a screenplay for a potential robocop 3 for later down the line miller would then start writing robocop 2. despite the return of peter weller the film would only see a return of almost 46 million dollars from a budget estimated to be 25 to 30 million miller's original drafts had been deemed unfilmable by the studio and most of the plot points that were removed in subsequent rewrites were later used in miller's nine-part comic book series boom studios released the title frank miller's robocop which was based in part on miller's original first draft for the sequel the plot is set against a backdrop of old detroit and would pit robocop against not only criminals but against mercenaries and his own replacement because in this world robocop has been declared an obsolete model because he still possesses human emotions and as the story progresses his sanity slowly unravels as he is reprogrammed to go insane miller's rejected robocop 3 treatment would then form the basis for the 2013 follow-up comic book series robocop the last stand in which the police force has disbanded the people of detroit have been evicted from their homes ed 209s and corrupt officers run the streets and the war between robocop and ocp is raging as the hostile takeover of detroit is in its final hour robocop is delta city's last and only hope prior to getting fired edward neumeyer and michael miner had completed a rush draft for robocop 2 under the subtitle the corporate wars as for their plot well it's quite a wild and inventive ride in summary the rejected draft opens with a christmas eve robbery of a corporate bank a truck full of robbers armed with a military cannon blast their way inside the bank and empty the vault of cash and jewelry robocop appears and the gang opens fire robocop returns fire and five of the gang are killed where they stand more robbers are killed during the shootout and the bank is demolished as robocop turns to leave an almost dead gang member reaches for the cannon hey cop he shouts as he fires then kaboom robocop takes a direct hit and is blown to pieces we cut to 25 years later it's a new world there's super-sized skyscrapers rolling news is pumped out to the masses at a rapid pace and a former comedian named bixby snyder is a populist president of america the states are divided up into a series of spaces each referred to as a plex new york plex europlex and so on a wealthy entrepreneur named theodore j flecker is on the verge of financially bailing out a bankrupt us government as he introduces new amendments into law in this new world robotic appliances are in everyday use poverty and exiled citizens exist outside of the plexus the military takes missions in space and what was once the thriving ocp from the first movie is now a discarded and long forgotten wreckage amongst the cobwebbed robots and abandoned biocybernetics we see robocop's head an attached organ system the old robocop model is being collected as a personal birthday present for theodore flicker the mechanical tendons are reassembled and he is interfaced with a computer mainframe as the history of alex murphy and robocop's heyday flashes by on screen the mainframe is a program called neurobrain that feeds information into robocop's operating systems robocop is taken to a nuclear protection facility and awakened he asks where he is his new programmers tell him he's in the former los angeles now known as metroplex 3 and that his new job is the protection of persons and property within the facility robocop is now utilized in the plex justice 5000 program he is encoded with the plex law system 5000 which deals with any criminal violation accordingly his first job is to take on a food service droid that malfunctions and begins attacking customers robocop's handlers are delighted with the efficiency in which he takes the relentless droid down and they ponder what to use him for next we learn of neurobrain's human origin her name is helen and she was the wife of stanley one of the scientists behind the program we see more of the surreal futuristic society there's mall worlds there's the leisure grid there's fun grid a vegas-like all-night hive of gambling drinking and black market trade we hear of pleasure bots used for companionship and intimacy scientists are conducting crazy experiments on people and as crafts are launched into space people die by the thousands as the colonization program experiences technical difficulties with oxygen supplies we see that people are addicted to a synthetic mood-enhancing drug called smudge that occasionally sends its users crazy the drug is more than likely being supplied to the populace by the corrupt security forces robocop is sent out into the night it's his first night back on duty and we see him apprehend criminals the automated plex jury sentences people to decades of hard labor or even punishment by death as the news reports robocop's return as the plot unfolds the corrupt trillionaire theodore flicker essentially buys out the government and soon owns them terrorists are hired to assassinate flickr with grenades they launch a public attack but they fail to kill him and he survives meanwhile the sentient neurobrain the ghostly helen tries to remind robocop of his true self alex murphy she tells him he is in control of himself and not those who wish to use him as a pawn for their own illicit means the corrupt handlers override the system and helen disappears in an electrical tornado they take robocop and order him to evacuate the poor and scatter the needy from the perimeter they want him to use force but robocop is able to muster enough humanity to refuse he escapes over the fence we also learned that theodore flicker is a clone and the real human died 10 years earlier the replicant was built to keep confidence with the public but the plan had backfired and the clone took a liking to his new found life hence the earlier assassination attempt the crazy clone learns of the attempt on his life and wipes out those responsible as his oppressive new justice bill is passed into law and flicker is anointed as the savior of 21st century capitalism meanwhile robocop is now out amongst the scavengers and the impoverished outcasts of this society they curiously shadow him as he advances toward the castle-like techno fortress that governs this land the terrorists are hired to take president snyder hostage as they now possess a devastating neutron bomb that could eliminate the whole country droids are dispatched to eliminate robocop a massive battle ensues as robocop takes the killer cyborgs down and now wounded he continues to advance on towards the corrupt leaders the president is then killed by the terrorists helen the neurobrain entwines herself around robocop's damaged body fueling him back to strength she allows robocop to gain control of his own senses and guides him robocop is ambushed with machine gun fire as guards gang members and drones of all nature attack and attempt to slow him down robocop fights and continues he kills the terrorists he finds theodore flicker tells him he's under arrest for impersonating a human being and terrorist endangerment flicker threatens to detonate the bomb and nuke the whole place robocop stands impassively and sentences him to death flicker tells him i own everything i own you robocop replies i quit then he shoots the clone to pieces removes its head and tosses it into the night through row after row of plate glass windows robocop leaves and walks alone down the rubbish strewn streets for now his only company is the friendly voice of helen the end paul verhoeven would later say of the unused robocop 2 that originally after the first one the studio immediately wanted a sequel and the writers the producer and myself all felt we needed more time to find something innovative again instead of cashing in on what was there but the studio was so impatient they dropped their writers and so i decided to abandon the project so they proceeded anyhow and the results basically were never at the level of the first one i saw them just for the sake of knowing what was happening but i was not even disappointed because i thought that the studio completely underestimated the talent and the art that we used to make the first one i still feel that the ideas we had for the second one were highly superior to what was done afterwards he would have to be resurrected like he was asleep for so many years and they didn't use him anymore and now in this time of terrorism or whatever they would say okay he can be resurrected again he would be laying like a mummy in a warehouse basically i think if you were to do it now you would have to reflect the world we live in now i would start from scratch and find an innovative story that would satisfy all the people that are basically longing like me for a good sequel robocop 3 was then released in the us in november 1993 and would see robocop now played by actor robert burke avenging the death of his partner lewis this pg-13 part 3 was deemed a critical failure and would put a halt to the movie franchise screenwriters newmeyer and miner would return however to script the feature-length pilot episode of robocop the tv series titled the future of law enforcement orion pictures received a 500 000 cash infusion for the sale of worldwide tv licensing rights for a robocop series from canadian company sky vision entertainment the pilot would allow the writers to utilize various elements from the unused corporate wars screenplay the most notable aspect being the concept of the central neurobrain now renamed from helen to diane the tv show would only air for one season giving that each of the 23 episodes were budgeted at over a million dollars each a second season wouldn't receive commission a rumor from 2005 would re-emerge in may 2008 when at the khan film festival mgm chairman harry sloan announced a remake of red dawn and that the studio also planned a big budget rebuild of robocop with a-list director darren aronofsky among others in discussions to write and direct it was confirmed soon after that aronofsky had indeed stepped up to the task of rebooting the dormant franchise and creating an all-new robocop story from scratch in august of the same year mtv would push aronofsky for details about robocop and the director would only say it's an interesting landscape but we've got to get a screenplay we're deep in it but there's not much to say until there's a screenplay they asked him would the story still take place in detroit and he said i don't think it's set anywhere that's recognizable as aronofsky finished up on his movie the wrestler screenwriter david self was brought in to help shape the new screenplay it seemed the project was stalling as mgm were having trouble deciding on how much of a budget to allocate a poster would then appear at a licensing exhibition in 2008. the poster promised that the film was coming in 2010. there were then news reports that the studio and the director were caught in a conflict over mgm's wish to shoot in 3d although aronofsky would say this was untrue he said all that stuff with the 3d i don't know where that came from actually i do know where that came from i did one q a and someone asked me about 3d and it was before i saw james cameron's films and i wasn't that into it at the time someone connected that to robocop there's no truth to that story aronofsky's take on the material would appear to be a radical one to say the least his story was set three thousand years in the future when humanity would have lost the notion of morality and the only place society could recover this concept was in the robocop program aronofsky's vision was said to be looking for a budget in the region of 150 million dollars mgm it seemed were experiencing ongoing cash flow problems and development was put on hold as aronofsky began to prep the film black swan david self would speak to comingsoon.com and say i'm still involved with it and darren aronofsky still involved with it he's making another movie right now but we're waiting for mgm to sort things out since they're a larger corporation and it's a situation where we have to be practical we're waiting to continue with them and we hope that happens soon and we can get back to it soon when asked would this be called robocop 4 he said it's definitely not a sequel it's an origin story it's an origin to the original robocop it's basically a reboot sadly none of this would come to fruition as in 2011 another reboot was announced with brazilian filmmaker jose padilla in the director's chair the new director would discard aronofsky's work and instead rein in both the budget and the scope of the vision and aim to create something more recognizable and familiar to the original he told crave online i haven't read aronofsky's script aronofsky is a great director i love his films aronofsky's great i have my own take on robocop i know what his take was and it's totally different it's a different thing different kind of film even different period in time so i haven't read his previous work the robocop reboot would see release in 2014 and open to mixed reviews the film which starred samuel l jackson gary oldman joel kinnaman as robocop and michael keaton would turn a decent profit the director was said by friends to have undergone a hellish experience during the process and that for every 10 ideas he had nine of them were rejected plans for a new robocop 2 in this universe were briefly considered but no commitment was made and the director had no plans to return in july 2018 variety broke the story that director neil blomkamp would take the reins of another sequel working with the title robocop returns it was reported that original screenwriter edward neumeyer would be producing robocop returns and michael miner would be executive producing screenwriter justin rhodes was hired to rewrite the corporate war script that newmeyer and minor had written back in the 80s and everything finally looked to be in place blomkamp would tell deadline that the original definitely had a massive effect on me as a kid 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's something we can get closer to in the making of a sequel that's 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 western 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'm excited by 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 blomkamp when asked on twitter whether his film would contain satire giant exploding squibs and be r-rated he replied there will be all these things when asked the following month who should play robocop blomkamp replied peter weller newmeier would reveal early details about the project in an interview with hn entertainment he said i'm a producer at the moment we talked about it a couple of years back and i reminded them that we had written a very rough sequel back in 1988 which then was stopped by the writers strike the same year and they looked at it and they said oh good so we did some more work on that and then neil blomkamp found out about it and he said i've always wanted to do this this is my dream project and mgm was very very pleased to get into business with him neil blomkamp and his screenwriter justin rhodes have done a pass on the script we were writing on and they're doing another one it's a slightly different concept in some ways than we were originally doing neil wants to do it i don't want to talk too much about it or someone will call me and tell me to shut up but we're hopeful and i think neil really wants to make a good robocop movie his idea is that it should be the proper verhoeven if verhoeven had directed a movie right after robocop i think that's what he's trying to achieve and i hope he does we'll see what happens next when asked would peter weller return he said as you know from the press that neil blomkamp wants to bring back peter weller and what you get when you do that if you use the dna of the old property in the new is that you get something that shares continuity and fans can embrace the brand it's not that different and what you realize is that when i was sitting and writing 30 years later rewriting the second draft of our sequel to robocop which was called the corporate wars at the time and is now called robocop returns weller now in his 70s would rule himself out via his agent according to one story that did the rounds in november 2018 weller would then speak for himself in april 2019 saying the guy i was just talking to said i understand you're not going to do it and refuse to do it i said i don't know where you heard that because neil blomkamp and i are talking consistently about it so i'll put the kibosh on that if that turns out i'll do that with him because he's great we just like to keep the windows open here because he's about to get financed when he does hopefully we'll make a deal and we'll do it if the money is right i'll do anything with robocop if there's no money in it i won't it's as simple as that when asked for an update on twitter blomkamp would reply script is being written going well imagine watching verhoeven do a follow-up film when asked did that mean using the original suit he replied one million percent the original but then two months later blomkamp would tweet off robocop i'm shooting new horror thriller and mgm can't wait need to shoot robocop now excited to watch it in theaters with other fans and there it was blomkamp was now off robocop returns due to a scheduling conflict and plans for the movie would seemingly return to square one little was ever revealed about blom camp and road's story except for the fact it was to be a continuation of the first film in november 2019 it was announced that following blomkamp's exit mgm had hired australian director the relatively unknown abe forsyth to take control of the planned sequel forsyth was an actor before turning his hand to directing short films and tv shows in australia little monsters a low-budget independent film co-financed by screen australia had gained positive attention and mgm were said to be excited by the attachment of foresight in 2020 newmeier began the development of a tv show prequel about dick jones the show would be set in the world of robocop but without robocop a show that would unravel the origins of ocp and its nefarious boss richard jones he would speak of the in-progress movie sequel and say we had a deal neil came on then abe forsythe came on and i think he's using a lot of the stuff neil had and some of the original stuff from the 1998 script but ave is doing his own version which is what i wanted i needed a fresh voice and he had a really interesting idea we're hoping when the next draft comes in we'll be in a position to make it i didn't want to say too much i wanted him to have the ideas and not worry about any other version of it including ours and just do his own thing what he came back with was really interesting it felt relevant and really crackled i expect to see a script any day now we're still trying to get a script right we went on some wild rambles with mr blomkamp so abe has his work cut out for him and as of late 2021 that's where we are currently up to it seems the new director and his people are still developing a vision for the project it also seems that nothing is written in stone will it be another reboot will it be the sequel that could have been in 1988 or will it be something else entirely only time will tell i guess there's always going to be an inbuilt audience that's hungry to see a great robocop movie and so now all that needs to happen is for the filmmakers to do what they do best and make a film as always thanks for watching

Channel: Supervoid Cinema

Views: 125,683

Keywords: robocop, robocop remake, robocop reboot, robocop returns, darren aronofsky robocop, neill blomkamp robocop, peter weller robocop

Id: 40AfsP9q0EE

Length: 24min 42sec (1482 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 16 2021