‘Robocop’ TV Series Inches Closer to Reality at Amazon
A new Robocop series is looking more and more like a reality for Amazon Prime Video. The streamer just nabbed two key producers for the developing serialized spin on the sci-fi action franchise.
The perennially busy James Wan (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom) and his Atomic Monster shingle will executive produce alongside Michael Clear and Rob Hackett. Fellow executive producer Peter Ocko (Lodge 49, The Office) has also boarded the project and will serve as writer and showrunner. The series will be produced in-house by Amazon MGM Studios.
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A look at the logline reveals that a TV-ified Robocop won’t deviate too far from the source material. “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,” it reads.
The original 1987 Robocop, directed by Paul Verhoeven, was an eerily prescient science fiction drama in which a giant corporation infiltrates an urban police force by making a cyborg cop out of a fatally injured officer. The feature was set in an unflattering dystopian Detroit, but, considering America’s long leashes for both capitalist behemoths and law enforcement, this reboot could easily be set in the present day and just about anywhere.
Robocop previously inspired two sequels, a 2014 film reboot and four short-lived TV series — most of the latter aimed at children.
Robocop is one of many, many film and TV titles that Amazon inherited when it closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM in 2022. Other big names include Silence of the Lambs, the James Bond franchise, The Handmaid’s Tale and Legally Blonde. The latter is on track to get a prequel series of its own at the streamer, original star Reese Witherspoon revealed onstage at the Amazon upfront earlier in 2024.
As for the Robocop creatives, Ocko is represented by Jackoway Austen and Management. Wan is repped by CAA, Stacey Testro International and Myman Greenspan.
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