Much like its central police officer hero in the 1987 Paul Verhoeven original film, RoboCop is a concept that doesn't die, but is instead repurposed in other forms. The latest is in a planned series that doesn't actually feature the cyborg cop at all, but follows the earlier days of uber-corrupt corporate type Dick Jones.
Yes, while it might have fans of officer Alex Murphy going all Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park and querying whether the creators, including original movie co-writer Ed Neumeier, plan to have RoboCop in their Robocop show, the answer remains a no. "It has all this cool stuff about RoboCop, except no RoboCop" he explains to Moviehole.
The idea, dreamt up by writers Dave Parkin and Rob Gibbs, will be to see how young, wannabe corporate climber Richard Jones becomes the hard-nosed arsehole we meet in the 1987 film, as played to such slimy effect by Ronny Cox. "There’s the idea of doing things about business and law enforcement in the city of Detroit a minute-and-a-half in the future, it would be a way to do all sorts of stories about business and tech, Silicon Valley, corporations, snakes in suits, cops, all that," Neumeier adds. "It’s a wonderful rich tapestry."
Right now, it's still in the development workshop, though Neumeier and the others are looking for company partners to work on a pilot. For more on the series, which sounds like Gotham, but set in Delta City, head to Moviehole's site.
On the big screen, there has been slow progress on making a follow-up, with Australian director Abe Forsythe currently in the driving seat and Neumeier involved behind the scenes.