Unveiling the Untold Story: The Shocking Truth Behind the Cancelled Robocop 2 by Director Neill Blomkamp

Summary

Neill Blomkamp had plans for a canceled Robocop sequel, titled Robocop Returns, which would have been a direct follow-up to the original film.

Blomkamp aimed to mirror Paul Verhoeven's directing style and create a sequel that had the same sense of immediacy as the first movie.

Released in 2015, Blomkamp's film Chappie shares thematic elements with Robocop, portraying a dystopian world where a sentient being is confined within a mechanical body.

Neill Blomkamp had plans for a cancelled sequel to Robocop 2. The original Robocop, released in 1987, was a tremendous success and is widely regarded as a classic action film of the 1980s. However, the subsequent sequels and TV series were poorly received. A remake of the film in 2014 was also met with criticism. In 2018, Blomkamp, known for directing District 9, intended to create his own follow-up based on a rejected concept for a Robocop sequel by the original film's writers.

Unfortunately, Blomkamp's vision for the sequel, titled Robocop Returns, did not come to fruition as he stepped down from the project in 2019. In a recent interview with JoBlo, he explained that his film would have directly continued the story from the original film and aimed to replicate its style as closely as possible.

Chappie Is Blomkamp’s Robocop

: The only film where I would have attempted to emulate Paul Verhoeven's directing style. My intention was for it to feel like the immediate aftermath. If Dick Jones had fallen out of the window on Monday, this would have been Tuesday. It truly began the very next morning. Therefore, it was an unmistakable sequel, executed in the same distinctive manner.

Despite not being able to create an official sequel to the 1987 Verhoeven film, Blomkamp did have the opportunity to direct his own version of Robocop. Chappie, released in 2015, revolves around an AI-driven law-enforcement robot that gains consciousness. The robot forms a bond with a pair of desperate punk gangsters in the dystopian streets of Johannesburg. Although Chappie is not a literal cyborg like Murphy from Robocop, they share a similarity in being consciousness trapped within a mechanical body, with their human side ultimately prevailing. Thematically, Blomkamp's film draws inspiration from various 1980s movies, including Short Circuit.

Chappie receives a disappointing 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, garnering unfavorable reviews from critics. However, there are still some advocates of the film, such as science-fiction author William Gibson. On the other hand, it appears highly improbable that Blomkamp's ambitious Robocop 2 will be released, as Amazon now holds the intellectual property rights after acquiring MGM's catalog. It is expected that Amazon will pursue safer options for rebooting the franchise.