RoboCop Will Ride Again in RoboCop Returns From Director Neill Blomkamp

Yes, you read that right, there’s another RoboCop movie coming.

Deadline reports that MGM has hired District 9 director Neill Blomkamp to make a film called RoboCop Returns, a sort of sequel/reboot to the original 1987 Paul Verhoeven film, and unrelated to the 2014 remake. The hope is for this to reinvigorate the franchise.

Justin Rhodes (Terminator 6) is rewriting a script by Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, who also wrote the original film. The pair wrote a sequel script after they wrote the original movie, but it never got made due to a writers strike and Verhoeven’s lack of interest in doing it. Two unrelated sequels followed, and a long time after came the 2014 reboot, but none of those told the story of the original follow-up idea. That script, and its ideas, lingered.

“Right when Trump was about to be elected president [MGM President Jon Glickman] called me and said, ‘Did you actually predict in your sequel script that a reality star would run for president and win?’ Neumeier told Deadline. “We had. So Mike and I wrote a draft and gave one interview in Barbados and I think the only person who read it was Neill Blomkamp, and that set this in motion.”

The reported plot synopsis is that “anarchy reigns and the fate of Detroit hangs in the balance as RoboCop makes his triumphant return to fight crime and corruption.” However, it’s unclear if this is a direct sequel, a straight reboot, or a bit of both. It seems like the latter.

“The original definitely had a massive effect on me as a kid,” Blomkamp said. “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 do you think? Are you ready for more RoboCop?

When I read the topic I thought: Really? After that disaster in 2014?

Then I read Blomkamp's name and now I'm thinking: Interesting. I think he would do a great job. If all his shorts become feature films (which he is trying to do) I think we have a new David Cronenberg. But I think he would get it right. He understands the material he's dealing with and doesn't back of sci-fi/horror.

A rewrite of the original script by the original screenwriters and directed by Neill Blomkamp. Maybe this can be Blomkamps chance to do for RoboCop that he wasn't able to do for Aliens.

This has been a developing story for sometime. This is based on the original penned sequel of the 1987 film which was ultimately rejected however the studio is now reconsidering it after all the failed attempts that followed the original movie.

So it will be the true Robocop 2. But after 30 years you have to wonder if it will work. I hope it does. No doubt after the new Terminator ignoring the sequels after T2 and the upcoming Indiana Jones movie, studios probably feel there is still some fire left in their franchises.

I don't know. I think Terminator and RoboCop is something totally different then Indiana Jones. The fourth Indy film should've been released in 1995. I think John Hughes or Chris Colombus once wrote a draft about halfway the 90's that would've brought Indy to Gardens of Babylon. But Indy ages, Terminator and Robocop actually shouldn't.

Terminator and RoboCop as sci-fi movies has a lot more of possibilities and they're mostly machine. You can stick anyone in RoboCop's outfit. Peter Weller was only seen in two movies out of three. Not counting the reboot. Terminator Salvation showed you don't need Arnold Schwarzenegger at all, just the metal skeletons.

I think in Blomkamp's hands it might work out. Check out his shorts... (and I do mean movies. ) If not there is always Elysium and District 9.

If they stick close to the original idea and not tone it down they might have something here. Set the movie in a city with a high crime rate in the near or not too distant future and RoboCop has the blow everyone away, I think this will work. I highly doubt Blomkamp will make the movie PG-13. Maybe it'll be a little less clunky. Who remembers RoboCop vs. RoboCain?

Everything comes back in the end.

Why not? Cameron has said many times that the tissue on the Terminator is live tissue so it will age. Regardless of the skeleton. Same thing with Robocop. All they did was combine robotics with human tissue but the tissue is still alive and ages.

According to my understanding the film is supposed to be set in the future where the Robocop project was abandoned but when things start to get out of hand they revisit the project.