Dan Stevens Takes RoboCop Back to Prime Video With a Human Job

That last bit will mean something to readers who have carried the 1987 movie around in their heads for years. It does not promise anything by itself. Credits are not a guarantee of tone, bite, or luck. But it does mean the new show has people in the room whose names go back to the first design of this strange machine: the dead policeman, the company that owns the miracle, the city asked to trust a weapon because the weapon wears a badge.

Gizmodo, citing Variety, described the new series as a long-in-the-works adaptation of Verhoeven’s film. Yahoo reported that the official logline centers on a large tech company working with local police to put a technologically advanced enforcer on the street, a police officer who is part man and part machine.

Photos: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America · CC BY-SA 2.0 · source 1, source 2

Why Stevens Makes Sense Inside the Suit

AOL listed Stevens’ recent and best-known work as including The Guest, Abigail, Legion, Downton Abbey, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Gizmodo also pointed to a long run of odd, high-wire genre parts: killers, scientists, monsters, aliens, patients, and beasts.

That resume matters here because RoboCop can go stiff in the wrong hands. The role needs discipline, but it cannot be dead. The joke of the suit is that it is supposed to remove the man. The ache of the story is that it fails.

Stevens has made a habit of playing men whose surfaces cannot be trusted. Sometimes he is charming. Sometimes he is dangerous. Sometimes the joke lands before the knife does. That does not tell us how his Alex Murphy will work. Nobody has seen the show, and hope is not evidence. But there is reason to hope the casting gives Prime Video an actor who can make a pause feel active, and who can put feeling behind a face the story may not always allow us to study.

For the person in the suit, RoboCop is not only an action part. It is a control part. The actor has to work with blocked movement, altered voice, and the memory of other performers who already left marks on the armor. Weller’s version still casts a long shadow because it found pain in limited motion. Stevens now inherits the shadow and the hardware.

Photos: Gage Skidmore · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source; Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America · CC BY-SA 2.0 · source

The 1987 Film Still Haunts This Deal

AOL reported that the original film was directed by Paul Verhoeven and followed a slain police officer whose body is used to create a powerful cyborg law enforcement agent. The same outlet reported that the 1987 film made $57 million at the box office against a $13.7 million budget and led to a franchise.

Yahoo reported that Weller played the lead in the first film, Robert Burke later played the role, and Joel Kinnaman led the 2014 remake. AOL reported that Weller returned for RoboCop 2, Burke took over in RoboCop 3, three television shows followed, and the 2014 remake starred Kinnaman. AOL also reported that the 2014 film made $242.6 million on a $130 million budget.

Flickering Myth, citing Deadline, reported that RoboCop was officially greenlit last month and that Stevens inherits the armor from Weller. Yahoo reported that Deadline had also said RoboCop was among the early MGM titles picked out for series development after Amazon acquired the studio.

That is where the business meets the body. Amazon did not buy MGM only for a logo at the front of old movies. A library title becomes a new job for writers, producers, designers, stunt teams, armor builders, sound crews, and, in this case, an actor who has to make a corporate machine feel like a trapped human being.

No Premiere Date Yet for Prime Video’s RoboCop

Yahoo reported that Prime Video has not announced a premiere date for the new RoboCop series. So the honest position is simple: Stevens has the part, the series has its main creative team, and the clock has not been put on the wall.

AOL reported comments Wan made when the show was first announced, saying he had long been a fan of RoboCop and pointing to the old film’s questions about technology, identity, and who corporations serve. That is a large promise, and large promises are cheap until a scene proves them. Still, those are the right walls for this story to bounce off.

RoboCop has always been a little funny because the future in it looks ridiculous and then turns out to be less ridiculous than we wanted. A city signs over its fear. A company sells order. A dead man gets sent back to work. Now Stevens gets the helmet, the walk, and the burden of making Alex Murphy more than valuable equipment.

Every factual claim above is drawn from these. The reading of them is ours.