James Wan has a new prime directive. The horror maestro will executive produce Amazon‘s new RoboCop series via his Atomic Monster production company. Variety reports that TV veteran Peter Ocko will showrun the series.
The series’ official logline has also been released: “A giant tech conglomerate collaborates with the local police department to introduce a technologically advanced enforcer to combat rising crime — a police officer who’s part man, part machine.” This is, essentially, the plot of 1987’s RoboCop, which does not give much indication whether the series will be connected with any of the previous entries in the franchise, or if it will be a complete reboot. Ocko has a thirty-year resume, starting as a writer on comedy series like Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Dinosaurs, and Weird Science. He subsequently worked with Bryan Fuller on Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me, and recently showran AMC‘s Lodge 49. He also created two short-lived series; the animated comedy Baby Blues and the Stanley Tucci medical drama 3 lbs.
Who Is RoboCop?
First introduced in the 1987 Paul Verhoeven action classic, RoboCop is a crime-fighting cyborg built from the remains of Detroit police officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller). Although he is guided by his “prime directives” to both protect the public and to serve his corporate masters at Omni Consumer Products, he also retains memories of his human life. The first film was an enormous financial and critical success, and spawned a long-running franchise; 1990’s RoboCop 2 was less-rapturously received than its predecessor, and Weller declined to return for 1993’s critically and commercially unsuccessful RoboCop 3. A 2014 remake with Joel Kinnaman beneath the helmet was a financial success, but received mixed reviews, and failed to kick off a new movie series. Meanwhile, there have been two separate live-action TV series, two animated series, and a wide array of comic books, video games, and action figures. No entry in the franchise has quite managed to equal the original, which mixes Verhoeven’s trademark satirical touch with high-octane action, dazzling special effects, and gut-churning gore.
In addition to Wan and Ocko, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett of Atomic Monster will also executive produce RoboCop. Danielle Bozzone is overseeing the project for Atomic Monster. The series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios, which intends to produce a number of new projects using the intellectual property they acquired via their 2021 purchase of MGM.
Amazon‘s RoboCop series is in development; no release date has yet been announced.
via Collider