‘RoboCop’ Is Getting a TV Series

An eight-part RoboCop TV series is coming to Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service.

The show is being produced and overseen by Peter Ocko, with James Wan also involved as an executive producer.

The series is based on the long-running franchise that began with Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 film. Since then, there were two live-action RoboCop film sequels, followed by a poorly-received reboot in 2014.

There have also been two live-action and two animated RoboCop television series in the past.

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The series is described as “a giant tech conglomerate convinces the city to place a powerful robot on its police force – a robot implanted with the consciousness of a beloved, fallen officer.” That certainly suggests it is a back-to-basics reboot of the entire RoboCop concept.

At Variety, Peter Friedlander of Amazon MGM Studios said…

’Robocop’ is a franchise that has meant something to audiences for nearly four decades — not just as an action spectacle, but as a sharp, provocative mirror of our relationship with technology and power. Peter Ocko has crafted a vision that honors the soul of what made the original so enduring while building something entirely fresh and urgent for today. Paired with the cinematic sensibility of James Wan and the team at Blumhouse Atomic Monster, we believe this series will captivate a whole new generation of fans on Prime Video.

Amazon has been exploring ways to bring back the RoboCop franchise basically from the moment they acquired MGM and its library of titles. The original movie starred Peter Weller as a good cop in a grungy, dystopian version of Detroit overrun by greed and unchecked corporations who want to use artificial intelligence as a means of expanding their control of the world. So, basically, it is in no way relevant to life in 2026. I wonder how they will find a way to make it seem like RoboCop is in tune with the zeitgeist now…