Prime Video’s New RobCcop Reboot Series Star Confirms Major OG Genre Return

The upcoming RoboCop TV show is confirmed to be treading through familiar genre territory.

The RoboCop franchise kicked off in 1987 with the same-named first movie, where Peter Weller played the titular protagonist. After Weller reprised the role in RoboCop 2, Robert John Burke succeeded him in RoboCop 3 to round out the original film series, and in 2014, Joel Kinnaman led the RoboCop reboot. Now there’s a live-action RoboCop TV show on the way, and its lead revealed how this Prime Video series will harken back to the franchise’s roots.

In an interview with ScreenRant's Ash Crossan, newly-cast RoboCop actor Dan Stevens explained how this new TV show’s humor and satire were the main things that drew him to this upcoming project, which Weller insisted be retained. As Stevens put it:

I think it was the humor -- the satire that Peter wants to preserve from the original. The two things I remember from the original are the extreme violence, which, at the age I was, I’d never seen anything quite like, and also the satirical take on it. And, yeah, I hope it’ll be just as entertaining.

Just like Weller, Burke, and Kinnaman, Stevens is playing a new version of Alex Murphy, a police officer who’s murdered in the line of duty, then revived and reconstructed into the cyborg known as RoboCop to combat crime with a firmer hand. Along with its action and sci-fi elements, 1987’s RoboCop was praised for its satirical commentary on corporate greed and corruption through the lens of Omni Consumer Products, which turned Alex into RoboCop. Per Stevens, Prime Video’s RoboCop TV show will give off that same kind of vibe.

Stevens’ casting comes a month after Amazon MGM Studios officially ordered the RoboCop series, which is being made by Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, and has tapped Lodge 49’s Peter Ocko as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. As described in the official logline, this take on the RoboCop lore follows a “giant tech conglomerate” that “convinces the city to place a powerful robot on its police force – a robot implanted with the consciousness of a beloved, fallen officer,” i.e. Stevens’ Alex. Season 1 will consist of eight episodes.

Prime Video’s RoboCop has been in development since Amazon acquired MGM in 2022, as it’s one of the many intellectual properties that belonged to the latter studio. Although this is the franchise’s first live-action TV show, there have previously been four animated RoboCop shows. Previously, plans to make a sequel to 2014’s RoboCop were scrapped, and a direct sequel to the first movie called RoboCop Returns, which would have seen Weller reprising the role, also didn’t move forward.

No other actors have been announced yet for Prime Video’s RoboCop, but the project’s other executive producers include James Wan, Michael Clear, and Rob Hackett from Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, and Michael Miner and Ed Neumeier, the co-writers of the original RoboCop movie. Stevens will next be seen in the A24 movie Onslaught, then he’ll return to the MonsterVerse in Godzilla x Kong: Supernova.

Showrunner Peter Ocko

Writers Peter Ocko

Cast

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