Robocop Heads For The Small Screen As Amazon Greenlights A Series

Paul Verhoeven’s magisterial sci-fi satire gets a new lease on cybernetic half-life.

Robocop is one of those movies that’s as close to perfect as movies get – just lightning in a bottle, a savage, satirical slice of the ol’ ultraviolence that left a mark back in 1987 and still packs a wallop today. But so far only the first film has really nailed it, right? We can admit that. After two sequels, a remake, two animated series and two live action series, it’s pretty clear you need a madman like Paul Verhoeven with his manic hand on the tiller to get the juice out of ol’ clanky. Lest we forget, Paul Verhoeven was right about everything.

Everything. Go watch Starship Troopers.

But Amazon apparently have forgotten that, or remembered the wrong things about it, which adds up to the same result. I’m not saying their upcoming Robocop reboot is gonna be tin-plated pants, but… well, there’s a track record you can look at and draw your own conclusions.

Nevertheless, The Ankler is reporting that Amazon’s recently appointed head of global television Peter Friedlander has pulled the rigger on a brand spankin’ new Robocop TV series. This is either good news or will put you in mind of a certain Arrested Development meme.

And that is all the news at this point, really, apart from the fact that Amazon also greenlit Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani’s adaptation of Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s superb comic, Sex Criminals. But where news fails, baseless speculation may suffice.

This isn’t the first time Amazon have toyed with the idea of bringing back the late Officer Alex Murphy (again, I guess). Neil Blomkamp (District 9) and Aussie director Abe Forsythe (Little Monsters, Wolf Like Me) were both attached to direct Robocop Returns at one point or another, a feature film sequel that would have ignored everything bar the first movie, but that roboship has robosailed.

Then in 2024 came the news that Peter Ocko (Lodge 49) was going to head up a series, with Saw director James Wan as executive producer through his Atomic Monster shingle. Whether those guys are still involved is anyone’s guess at the minute, though.

Now, I’m not necessarily against a new Robo. I just think you need to be kind of insane, under the pump, and horrified at the state of America to make a good Robocop picture. And while there are plenty of us around who fit that criteria, I’m pretty sure the only people at Amazon who do are delivering packages.