Amazon just hired James Wan to direct episodes of their new RoboCop series. And, honestly, the Saw and Aquaman director is the perfect fit for the material.
Wan, who is also the executive producer for the upcoming Amazon/MGM reboot, will direct key episodes of the show, which begins shooting in Vancouver in January 2027.
What’s surprising is that the show won’t follow Alex Murphy, which was made famous by Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 RoboCop film. Instead, it will introduce a new cybernetic hero named Marc Kyle, a soldier rather than a police officer. When Kyle dies during combat, he is brought back to life and rebuilt as a cyborg.
Peter Ocko, the showrunner behind Lodge 49 and Pushing Daisies, will be writing the episodes. So that means there’s a really strong team behind the project.
And that’s important because RoboCop has been getting the runaround from Hollywood for years, and the track record is not exactly inspiring.
We had the 2014 reboot with Joel Kinnaman, which wasn’t a favorite amongst fans who called it an Iron Man rip-off. A sequel never came. Then in 2019, Neill Blomkamp walked away from RoboCop Returns because MGM needed cameras rolling before he was ready. A lot of fans were very disappointed by the news at the time, mostly because Blomkamp’s version seemed to be closer to Paul Verhoeven’s original.
Meanwhile, in 2018, Leigh Whannell, Wan’s partner on Saw and Insidious, made Upgrade, a RoboCop-inspired film, for just $3 million. It grossed $17 million and, honestly, is probably the best RoboCop film since 1987 that technically isn’t a RoboCop film. Whannell told Vulture that Verhoeven’s classic was a direct influence: “With Upgrade, there’s certainly a nostalgia there associated with ’80s sci-fi films that I grew up with, like RoboCop and The Terminator. I love, and I’ve always loved, contained sci-fi films that utilise practical effects.”
That was evidence that the franchise didn’t need a big budget to resurrect itself. They needed a director who understood the material. Wan is that guy. Even though he is mostly known for his work in horror, he has extensive experience with action films too. Furious 7 and Aquaman proved that.
It will be interesting to see if fans take to Marc Kyle. After all, the character (Alex Murphy’s version) has a strong following, why else would Detroit build a 11-foot, 3,500-pound bronze statue in honor of him?
But going this route also allows MGM to free up Alex Murphy for the films. If Wan pulls off the series, he could definitely return to the big screen very soon too.
