“District 9” Director Neill Blomkamp to Direct New “RoboCop” Movie

The film will be based on unmade sequel to the 1987 original.

robocop
Peter Weller in RoboCop (1987)

Neill Blomkamp, director of the dystopian sci-fi movies District 9, Elysium and Chappie has been officially announced as the director for the upcoming RoboCop. The movie will be a follow up to the ’80s classic, and will be titled RoboCop Returns. MGM hopes to revive a franchise that began with the Paul Verhoeven-directed satirical sci-fi action thriller that Orion released in 1987, Deadline reports. The script will be based off the one that Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner wrote years ago as a planned sequel, that never happened, to the Verhoeven hit. Maxim reports that the plot of the film is: “Anarchy reigns and the fate of Detroit hangs in the balance as RoboCop makes his triumphant return to fight crime and corruption.”

Blomkamp’s District 9 grossed $210 million worldwide and got four Oscar nominations. He followed that with several science fiction films that carried underlying messages, like Chappie.

“The original definitely had a massive effect on me as a kid,” Blomkamp told Deadline. “I loved it then and it remains a classic in the end of 20th Century sci-fi catalog, with real meaning under the surface. Hopefully that is something we can get closer to in making of a sequel. That is my goal here.”

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