Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop hit theaters in the summer of 1987. The R-rated science fiction film was produced on a budget of 13 million and had a box office return of 53 million. RoboCop was a hit, and it was in good company. It shared the blockbuster season with the likes of Predator, The Lost Boys, Lethal Weapon, The Untouchables, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Full Metal Jacket, and Dirty Dancing. To be memorable in a summer stacked with smash hits like that is extraordinary, but RoboCop was successful enough that it spawned two sequels, a cartoon, a toy line (despite its R rating), comic books, three video games, and in 2014 it was rebooted by director Jose Padhila (Elite Squad) with plans for a sequel being ultimately scrapped. In 2018, another reboot was announced, this time with Neil Blomkamp (District 9) attached to direct. In 2023, Amazon Studios acquired the franchise with its acquisition of MGM and has since announced that it is developing a series and a film based on the nearly 40 year old IP.
The Story
RoboCop was written by Edward Neumeier (Starship Troopers) and Michael Miner. Neumeier conceived the story while visiting the set of Blade Runner. At the time, Neumeier was working as a script reader for Warner Bros. His office was a trailer on the lot at Warners and in the evenings he would walk over to visit the elaborate set of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller.
They started shooting at night, and I would go over at the end of my day, and I literally just started working on the movie just because you could do something—there were so many people, they didn’t know whether you were working or not. In doing so—because I just wanted to make movies and be on sets and stuff like that—I watched Ridley Scott direct four nights of Blade Runner, and it was astounding to be able to do. I made garbage for the street with the art department. One night they brought out that car, which they called a “Spinner”—it just had me at first sight, because I really like cars. At that moment, I was in a very refined location. I was in the atmosphere created by Ridley Scott, looking at a prop he had designed. After four nights—and maybe not enough sleep, because I was doing double shifts—I had this astounding idea: RoboCop came into my head as a title, and I saw the character in this kind of bluish armored thing. He was a policeman who was also a robot, and he was looking at this strange human race. It was an A.I.idea, like, “Why are people the way they are?”
While working as an executive at MCA, Neumeier met Miner, who was directing a music video that he described as “a rock video with a robot in it”. Neumeier mentioned his own robot idea, and the two decided to collaborate on the script. Once they had a draft, they handed it around to people they knew in the business, and producer Jon Davison (Airplane!, Starship Troopers) expressed interest.
The tone of the script was a source of tension between Neumeier and Miner early on, with Neumeier wanting the film to be funny. Davison suggested Neumeier lean into the humor and just go for it. Once the duo were aligned and had a solid second draft, they began to think about directors. Eventually, Verhoeven’s name was thrown out by Barbara Boyle, an executive at Orion Pictures and former colleague of Davison’s from his days at Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.
RoboCop would be Paul Verhoeven’s first big Hollywood movie, but it almost didn’t happen. Verhoeven dismissed the film after reading the title and discarded it. Fortunately, Boyle suggested they send it to Verhoeven again. This time, though, Verhoeven’s wife Martine read it, and suggested it was something he would be interested in.
Initially, Verhoeven didn’t agree with the comedic tone, thinking it would play better as a serious film. So Neumeier gave Verhoeven some British comic books (including Judge Dredd) to give the director an idea of what he was going for. Neuemeier and Miner went back to the drawing board, agreeing to produce a serious draft for Verhoeven, but it was a slog. Neither of the writers were into it, and they were basically stuck when Verhoeven came into the office and said he finally understood it was like a comic book. He suggested they go back to the second draft and refine that.
By then, Miner was off directing a movie called Deadly Weapon for Charles Band, so Neuemeier ended up refining the script with Verhoeven and working on the film as a co-producer. Verhoeven is often credited for the brilliant social satire that is RoboCop, and Neuemeier gives the director his due, saying the realization of the film was “dependent on, first and foremost, Paul’s astounding ability to display it, to show it, to realize it, as the French would say.” But the ideas were there from the beginning in Neuemeier and Miner’s first draft.
Satire Gone Wrong?
As mentioned, the success of RoboCop led to an entire franchise, including a kid’s cartoon that aired on Saturday mornings and an accompanying toy line. Well, that’s par for the course, you might say. After all, at least half the stuff I love from my childhood was stuff I probably shouldn’t have seen as a kid. The Terminator movies, the Conan movies, The Mad Max movies, the Rambo movies, the Lethal Weapon Movies…I could fill this page with stuff I probably shouldn’t have been watching as a kid in the 80s.
And OK, that’s fine. I survived. But, with the exception of First Blood, pretty much all of those movies leaned into what they were: some kick ass macho shit. Kickass macho shit that was packaged, marketed, and sold to men and boys alike. These movies were meant to be badass shoot ’em up flicks that would sell action figures and lunch boxes and toy rocket launchers.Those movies leaned into America’s love of a lone man who will come in and blow the bad guys away and never mind details like the law. But RoboCop was a send up of all that. And, as far as I can tell, a large part of its audience didn’t get the joke. Or didn’t get the message behind the joke anyway.
Does that mean the satire was so stealthy and clever that it slipped under the noses of most American filmgoers? And if so, I have to ask: was the satire effective?
I know the critics got it. It’s all they could talk about. But did kids get it? Did the average moviegoer get it? RoboCop came out at a time when crime was high and urban decay was killing so many large American cities. I think most ordinary moviegoers saw the movie and wanted the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. I mean, as an 11-year-old, that’s what I took from the film. And I don’t remember my dad remarking on the clever social messaging. As far as I know, he watched to see the baddies get what was coming to them. And that’s about it. But whether the adults in Middle America or on the Coasts got the film’s message or not, there’s no doubt in my mind that kids weren’t thinking deeply about it.
And with a cartoon and a line of toys aimed at kids, I don’t think Orion was too concerned about it, so long as the royalties from licensed merchandise kept rolling in. There’s even a tongue-in-cheek scene at the beginning of the movie where Peter Weller’s Alex Murphy explains why he’s learned to twirl his service pistol before holstering it. His son watches a show about a futuristic cop who can twirl his pistol and thinks because his dad is a cop, he should be able to do it too. Murphy points out that role models are a big deal to 11-year-olds. He then quips that he also does it because he thinks it’s pretty neat.
I mean, that scene kind of encapsulates what I think men’s and boy’s experiences of the film were back in the 80s. Boys look up to heroes like RoboCop but so do the men. It’s why these movies were so popular back then. Not because the message was clever.
But that’s just how I see it. I’d love to hear your opinion down in the comments.
What RoboCop Means to Us
Every since I was a kid I’ve loved stories about identity. About who we are, and how we become that. I’ve also loved cathartic ultra-violence (on screen at least) since I was a kid. RoboCop had all that and threw in heaping helpings of satire and black humor. I loved it from the moment I first saw it, and the years have not diminished my enjoyment. The movie makes me entertain the deep questions – Is RoboCop Murphy? Or is he a machine that just remembers being Murphy? Is remembering enough to make a person, and is a lack of memory all it takes to turn us into machines? Too deep? No worries, there will be shootouts, giant robots, and some guy will get liquified across the hood of a car. All of that is what makes RoboCop for me. So deep. So cool. So gross.
–Bob Cram Jr
RoboCop is one of those films I remember being obsessed over as a kid. I saw that commercial on TV and I was all in. It was just so god damn cool looking that I had to see it. Well, it was rated R and I was 12, so seeing it in the theater didn’t happen. But leave it to HBO and all its glorious 8 pm and on late-night airings of this film. It was everything I was hoping it to be. Sci-fi-themed, mildly futuristic/dystopian, funny, and violent. I didn’t know who the hell Paul Verhoeven was but he had made a masterpiece in my eyes. Over the next 10 years, he followed it up with a handful of more seriously rewatchable films too. The dude was on fire. Years later I was shopping at a Virgin Megastore on my lunch break and they had a Criterion Edition DVD that I wanted to buy, but I held off to get it the following week. Dumb move on my part, of course, it was gone and now it’s out of print. Eh whatever, DVD’s are a dead format anyway.
That all being said, I rewatched the film for the first time in a long time and it’s still a cool movie, but man it’s a little slow and boring if you ask me. But I’ll take it over any of the sequels any day.
–K. Alvarez
Let’s continue discussing RoboCop down in the comments!
