‘RoboCop’. Without a doubt, it’s one of the finest action movies the eighties has to offer. But the nineties and rapidly diminishing returns saw the series grind to a halt. Since then, there have been several attempts to bring ‘RoboCop’ to television, none of which quite managed to catch on, and of course 2014 saw the release of a remake of the original film, to which the reception was mixed at best.

But what’s next? Despite some early talk of a sequel, no follow up to the remake has materialized. Now, rather unexpectedly,  Edward Neumeier, co-writer of the original film, is hinting that he is working on a direct sequel to the original. Speaking to Zeitgeist regarding the enduring popularity of the original ‘RoboCop’, Neumeier had this to say:

“I had seen early screenings and people laughed at it, so I thought: “Oh it might be successful,” and it was more successful than anybody really knew it would be. I didn’t expect to be talking about it thirty years later. It was kind of the start of my career and later we did ‘Starship Troopers’ – which was an enormous movie that took forever. I think all of that came out of that and it’s nice that people are still interested in ‘RoboCop’ and they have me working on a new one at MGM right now so maybe we’ll get another out of it.”

Asked to elaborate, he added:

“Well, here’s what I’ll say. We’re not supposed to say too much. There’s been a bunch of other ‘Robocop’ movies and there was recently a remake, and I would say this would be kind of going back to the old ‘Robocop’ we all love and starting there and going forward. So it’s a continuation of the first movie. In my mind. So it’s a little bit more of the old school thing.”

Given that the project has yet to be publicly announced, it’s likely not too far along in development. It may not even be a sure thing that it goes into production, given how many false starts the franchise has had over the years. But if there’s anyone who can recapture the sensibility that set the original ‘RoboCop’ apart (and was never quite duplicated in the sequels), it would be one of the people who was instrumental to the movie in the first place.

Be sure to check back with ScienceFiction.com for more on this and other ‘RoboCop’ projects as it becomes available.