RoboCop prequel series without RoboCop on the way from original screenwriter

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

So…apparently there's a ROBOCOP series being developed by MGM that will contain no RoboCop…for some reason. At least, that's what one of the original film's screenwriters – Ed Neumeier – said in an exclusive interview with Moviehole. Here's some pertinent snippets from that interview:

It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop.

I’m working with these two writers, Dave Parkin and Rob Gibbs, who bought this idea to a TV producer friend of mine, who then brought it to me. The first time I heard it I knew it was a cool idea because I could see a lot of things you could do with it. It’s such an interesting character.

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. It’s a wonderful rich tapestry.

So we’ve been talking about it and I think we have an interesting story…It’s fun to work with a younger version of the Dick Jones we meet in RoboCop. He’s an actualized corporate predator [in the movie] but nobody necessarily starts out being the bad guy.

So it’s going to be about the evolution of Richard Jones to Dick Jones, the story of OCP and how the world moves into the future, how the corporate world behaves.

Honestly…I'm not totally against the prequel idea. I was skeptical when initially brought up – and it could still be a disaster –  but a big part of what made ROBOCOP so great was its astute satire and skewering of police corruption, corporate malfeasance, privatization of media, and capitalism run amok. RoboCop, as a characer, was an endpoint to all of that, and the action he brought was honestly secondary to what made the movie more than a simple schlock B-movie programmer. And as Neumeier said in the interview, with everything going on in the world – especially involving police and corporate corruption – this might be exactly what we need right now.

Meanwhile, there's also an upcoming ROBOCOP sequel – ROBOCOP RETURNS – based on a 1988 script from original writers Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, that is pulling a HALLOWEEN and pretending only the original film exists and all other sequels are non-canon. It had DISTRICT 9's Neil Blomkamp attached at one point, before eventually being replaced by Abe Forsythe. No official start or release date for either project announced at this time.

So what do you guys think? Would you like to see a series set in ROBOCOP's universe-sans-RoboCop, ala GOTHAM-sans-Batman or THE MANDALORIAN-sans-the Skywalkers? Either way, sound off below!