The 1980s are filled with sci-fi franchises that have continued to spawn sequels and spin-offs to this day. Robocop is one such franchise that is defined by its first installment, and has thus far been confined entirely to the big screen. Now, though, a new Robocop series is coming to Amazon, and Variety is reporting that Peter Ocko will serve as the writer and showrunner of the series with James Wan as a producer.
The show’s official logline reads: “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.”
The series has been in early stages of development since Amazon first acquired MGM, and was part of Amazon’s plans to mine the well of MGM intellectual property for various stories. A Legally Blonde prequel and a Poltergeist project are also in development along similar lines.
Ocko has written for a wide variety of shows throughout his career in Hollywood, including Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Lodge 49. Based on the logline for the series, it seems like the show will be a full on reboot of the 1987 movie that first launched the franchise. That movie was directed by Paul Verhoven, and was set in a future Detroit where a private company was trying to bring an innovative approaching to policing.
In the decades since that movie’s release, the notion of police overreach has only become more trenchant, and it’s hard to imagine that any new version of this story won’t address that idea, at least to some extent. There’s no word yet on when the project may ultimately debut.
