Could 72 year-old Peter Weller return to his most famous role as Detroit police officer Alex Murphy, better known as ‘RoboCop’? That certainly seems to be the impression given on Twitter by director Neill Blomkamp, who is heading up the new sequel ‘RoboCop Returns’. When a fan posted on the social media site that he had re-watched the original movie and was left wondering who could assume the role in Blomkamp’s movie, the director himself replied with two simple words, “Peter Weller.”
In 2014, Sony released a new version of ‘RoboCop‘ with Joel Kinnaman in the title role. Kinnaman isn’t really a huge name, but the cast also included the likes of Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earl Haley, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman. Even so, there was really no passion for the reboot. Reviews were mediocre and the film made less than $250 million on a budget of $100M.
But could a remake starring the original headliner succeed where the complete reboot failed?
Here is the Twitter exchange between Blomkamp and fans:
Rewatched #Robocop last night… Still one of the best ❤️ Can’t wait to see the @NeillBlomkamp twist … who should play Robocop though? pic.twitter.com/0LN4LCXoso
— Dimitri Vegas (@dimitrivegas) August 13, 2018
Peter Weller
— Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) August 13, 2018
Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning again in the upcoming ‘Terminator’ reboot, so why not Weller? And working in Weller’s favor is the fact that even in the original 1987 movie, RoboCop could barely move. So most likely there wouldn’t be a lot of stunt work involved. And if there was, RoboCop’s armor conceals almost all of his face so a stunt performer could do the heavy lifting.
Weller followed up the first ‘RoboCop’ with a sequel in 1990. A third movie was released in 1993, but with Robert John Burke in the lead role. (Weller’s co-star in the first movie, Nancy Allen, who played Officer Anne Lewis, was not in the second movie, but did return for the third.) In addition to ‘RoboCop’, Weller starred in two other science fiction cult favorites 1984’s ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension‘ and 1991’s ‘Naked Lunch’. He has steadily worked well into the present, most recently on ‘Sons of Anarchy’, ‘The Last Ship’ and ‘Longmire’. He also had a role in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness‘.
The new movie, ‘RoboCop Returns’ was written by Ed Neumeier and ignores all of the sequels and subsequent TV shows as well as the reboot. As Neumeier previously said:
“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 really of the first movie. In my mind. So it’s a little bit more of the old school thing,”
‘RoboCop Returns’ does not have a production start date or release date yet. Check back for any updates as they become available.
In the meantime, would you like to see Peter Weller back as RoboCop in this reboot/sequel?