The trend of “reboot sequels” to once popular move franchises continues and this time we are headed to the streets of Detroit to catch up with an old cyborg friend. It looks like Robocop Returns is still alive and Abe Forsythe, the director of the gory zombie comedy Little Monsters has been tapped to direct the new adventures of Alex Murphy. Ed Neumier and Michael Miner, writers of the script for the original film of the Robocop franchise, will be producing the new movie along with Richard Suckle. Miner and Neumeier also wrote the script for the new movie along with Justin Rhodes (Terminator: Dark Fate). Forsythe has apparently taken on the responsibility for rewriting the last version of the script written by Rhodes.
Originally released in 1987, Robocop told the story of Alex Murphy, a cop who was brutally murdered in the line of duty. OCP, a corporation contracted to run Detroit’s newly privatized police force uses Murphy’s body for the Robocop project, a hi-tech cyborg police officer. While the project is mostly successful, Murphy begins to link clues to his former life while discovering a secret criminal conspiracy that reaches all the way to the top of the OCP corporation. The movie was brutal and violent but also filled with humorous stabs at capitalist culture. There were two sequels in the 90s that did not quite reach the heights of the original movie and there was the truly horrid Robocop: Prime Directives television miniseries. The less said about the awful 214 reboot, the better.
Much like the 2018 Halloween and the recent Terminator: Dark Fate, Robocop Returns will be a direct follow-up to the 1987 film and completely ignores the existing sequels.