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Amazon has officially greenlit a Robocop series for development. The series will be made by Blumhouse Atomic Monster with Peter Ocko as the showrunner.
The official logline per Deadline, reads, “A giant tech conglomerate convinces the city to place a powerful robot on its police force - a robot implanted with the consciousness of a beloved, fallen officer.”
RoboCop was a 1987 science fiction and action movie that became a franchise after its commercial success. Peter Weller plays the original RoboCop and RoboCop 2, while Robert Burke takes on the role in the third film.
In the first RoboCop, the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products revives Murphy and transforms his body into the cyborg police officer known as RoboCop. RoboCop has no memory of his past life. He is forced to fight crime with limited prime directives: serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law. He is also programmed with a classified fourth directive which is later revealed in the film. At the end of the film, Detroit descends into chaos, and RoboCop finally remembers that his name is Murphy.
The original film critiques corporate greed, AI, and law enforcement, and has been hailed among some of the best action films of all time on IGN, which said, “this gritty, hard-edged tale of police corruption and criminal brutality stands as one of the nastiest mainstream films ever released.”
Released during the era of Blade Runner (1982) and Terminator (1984), RoboCop stands out because its dark violence is cut by the sardonic humor of the script. As a result, the intensity of the scenes, including Murphy’s death, ultimately earned the film an X rating. Scenes had to be cut down in order for it to get an R rating instead.
The film spawned two sequels, RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, in the 1990s. It also inspired a 2014 remake starring Joel Kinnaman. RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 follow Murphy as Omni Consumer Products continues to wreak havoc on Detroit.
Deadlinereported in 2023 that Robocop was one of the first titles from MGM that Amazon had wanted to move forward with for series development after their acquisition. Other titles included Legally Blonde, Barbershop, Stargate, and Poltergeist. Legally Blonde has already premiered the prequel series Elle on Prime Video with great success. Many of the other names were pushed forward for further development or axed since the announcement was made.
Ocko was tapped in 2024 to write and create the show, with James Wan as executive producer. Wan is a well-known horror producer with his hand in several blockbusters. Wan explained, “I’ve been a massive fan of Robocop forever, so getting to help bring this world to television is a dream.” He praised Paul Verhoeven, the director of the 1987 Robocop, saying, “What Paul Verhoeven created in 1987 was decades ahead of its time, and its questions about technology, identity, and who corporations really serve have only grown more urgent.”
Blumhouse Atomic Monster will be the production company responsible for the series. Ed Neumeier, who wrote the original 1987 RoboCop, will serve as an executive producer on the project.
