RoboCop Prequel Series in Development from MGM About Villain Dick Jones

by joshed 9/10/2020 09:55:00 AM 0 comments

During a recent interview with Moviehole.net, RoboCop co-writer Ed Neumeier revealed that MGM is developing a RoboCop prequel TV series centering on the movie’s villain Dick Jones (originally played by Ronny Cox) and the rise of Omni Consumer Products.

“I’m working at MGM on it. It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop,” said Neumeier. “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.”

When asked if the series will be “satirical about politics and society” like the original film, Neumeier said: “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 actualised 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.”

Neumeier added that “it’s amazing how many people you have to convince” to get a series ordered, but he hopes they will be able to “find the partners” to get the pilot made.

MGM has had a RoboCop sequel feature in the works for some time now, titled RoboCop Returns, which was initially going to be directed by Neill Blomkamp before the filmmaker announced he was no longer attached to the project.

Paul Verhoeven’s original 1987 classic RoboCop starred Peter Weller as Officer Alex Murphy, who is brutally killed in the line of duty and ultimately resurrected as the cyborg crime fighter. The film garnered $53 million at the box office and three Oscar nominations, winning one for sound effects editing. Weller returned for the 1990 sequel RoboCop 2, directed by Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back) from a screenplay co-written by comics scribe Frank Miller, which grossed $45 million and was not as well received.

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RoboCop Prequel Series in Development from MGM About Villain Dick Jones