The RoboCop franchise is about to get a new series and film

The RoboCop franchise has a new series and film in the works and science fiction fans should be happy.

There appears to be good news for fans of classic science fiction as a new television series and movie for RoboCop. That said, both entities are shaping to be radically different. The television series will not feature RoboCop but should feature Alex Murphy, the cop who would die and be reborn as the RoboCop. The film will be the fourth sequel in the original franchise (excluding the 2014 reboot). It will take place after the events of the first film but will not take into account the second or third film in the franchise.

For the television side of things, the focus will shift from Muprhy’s cyborg alter ego to Dick Jones, the CEO of Omni Consumer Productions. It’ll follow his rise up the corporate ladder, and will see him becoming more and more corrupt. Original movie co-writer Ed Neumeier describes the series to Moviehole as having “…all this cool stuff about RoboCop, except no RoboCop”.

Writers Dave Parkin and Rob Gibbs are writing the series and they intend to show how a young, wannabe, corporate climber in Jones and how he becomes the villain of the original franchise.

For the film, the story will see RoboCop return to active duty as Detroit is again on the brink of destruction thanks to corruption and crime. The film is entitled RoboCop Returns and despite the fact that it will land in the timeline of the original film, it won’t feature series icon Peter Weller as the voice and face of the cyborg protector.

Abe Forsythe is currently attached as the director, however, taking over from Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp said he was going to bring back the original suit from the first few movies but that may not be the case going forward with Forsythe taking over the project.

Much like the series, RoboCop Returns doesn’t have a release date yet, and neither film has gone into production as of right now. While the series version may not feature RoboCorp it’s entirely possible that fans will get more than their fair share of justice from the upcoming film, assuming it avoids developmental hell.