Amazon is making a Robocop TV show with the showrunner from Lodge 49
Does the company know that it is, in fact, Omni Consumer Products?
Amazon has officially ordered eight episodes of a TV show based on the Robocop franchise, according to a report by Variety. We already knew the company was working on a pilot, but now it's gotten a full series order.
The showrunner behind this adaptation is a guy named Peter Ocko. He's been in the writer's room for all kinds of great shows, like The Office, Pushing Daisies and The Leftovers, to name a few. He was also the showrunner on the bizarre and strangely captivating cult series Lodge 49. James Wan, the co-creator of Saw and the director of the Aquaman movies, is producing. Interestingly, Ed Neumeier is on board as an executive producer. He co-wrote the original Robocop film, which was directed by luminary Paul Verhoeven.
"What Paul Verhoeven created in 1987 was decades ahead of its time, and its questions about technology, identity and who corporations really serve have only grown more urgent," Wan said in a statement.
We'll have to wait and see just how pointed the commentary is. After all, the main villain of the first film was Omni Consumer Products. This was a global behemoth of a company that had its hands in just about everything, including weird robots. That sounds a whole lot like Amazon to me.
We don't have a cast yet, or a release window. The first Robocop film is nearly 40 years old at this point, so the franchise has definitely had some staying power. It spawned two sequels, some cartoons and even other live-action TV adaptations. Most recently, there was a reboot film that came out in 2014. RoboCop: Rogue City, a video game, was released a few years ago. It was surprisingly good and well worth the time for any fans of the franchise.