Dan Stevens’ RoboCop Has Big Cookies to Fill: The “Robo Wants an Oreo” Story

In July 2026, Amazon MGM Studios officially announced a brand new 8-episode RoboCop TV series for Amazon Prime Video. The new show will reboot the character under the leadership of Lodge 49 creator Peter Ocko and James Wan producing through Blumhouse Atomic Monster. Then a month later, Deadline reported that Dan Stevens would play the new Alex Murphy and his cyborg alter ego, RoboCop — making him the first actor to play the character since Joel Kinnaman’s 2014 reboot. For more on the series’ creative team, see our earlier report on James Wan joining the show as director.

And with that news, an old clip that first went viral in 2023 has resurfaced again. It’s genuinely one of the strangest stories to come out of the original 1987 set. And it involves Oreo cookies.

RoboCop (1987): The Dystopian Classic That Predicted Today’s Headlines

RoboCop is one of the most iconic characters in cinema. The 1987 film directed by Paul Verhoeven is an 80s classic that foretold much of the financial and socio-political problems of our day. RoboCop takes place in Detroit, a city on the brink of financial and social collapse, a dystopian nightmare where lawlessness is rampant and criminals run wild.

Alex Murphy is a cop with the Metro West precinct. Pursuing a gang of criminals, Murphy is ambushed, tortured and shot to death. A megacorporation, Omni Consumer Products, controls the police force. The company transforms Murphy’s corpse into RoboCop, a heavily armoured cyborg with no memory of his former life. RoboCop is programmed with three prime directives: serve the public trust, protect the innocent and uphold the law. A fourth prime directive, Directive 4, is classified.

RoboCop’s portrayal of a techno-fascist dystopia was prophetic. It has secured a rich legacy and is a groundbreaking film in the science-fiction genre.

Reflecting on the film in Far Out Magazine, Swapnil Dhruv Bose writes, “Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi experiments are routinely revisited by fans all over the world, with films such as Total Recall and Hollow Man maintaining a steady cult following over the years. However, none of Verhoeven’s subsequent projects have surpassed the brilliance and the sociopolitical scope of his 1987 masterpiece RoboCop.”

RoboCop is a visionary work surpassing science fiction’s breadth and scope to deliver a film that speaks to us as clearly today as it did over 35 years ago when it was released. Bose says that RoboCop offers “a gripping cyborg thriller while also delivering an incisive commentary on the formation of police states.”

RELATED: Attention, Detroit Citizens: RoboCop Is Officially On Patrol

RoboCop’s Techno-Fascist Themes, From the Singularity to the Omega Point

The seminal film is not just about guns and violence, of which there are plenty, and is one of the film’s criticisms. For Paul Verhoeven, the film was equally satirical as it was serious, poking fun while offering a sobering commentary on the American obsession with guns, violence and political and corporate fascism, which naturally transforms urban environments into police states.

Another theme the film explores is the emergence of a singularity, the inevitable integration of humans and machines. Murphy’s transformation into a cyborg represents the first step for humanity and its journey toward an Omega Point, where the digital replaces biology.

The Viral “Robo Wants an Oreo” Story From RoboDoc, Explained

These dense themes of the film were masked underneath excess violence and satire, but their presence made the film such a classic. RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop, the 2023 documentary series that first surfaced this story, offers a unique perspective behind the making of the film and remembers to add a sense of humour. The grim themes of the film didn’t affect the creative team’s mood and lightheartedness too much.

In one behind-the-scenes anecdote, weapons master Randy E. Moore shares a story about him and RoboCop star Peter Weller, who suddenly desired Moore’s Oreo cookies during filming at the steel mill location. Randy recounts the story,

“I’d hand Peter his weapon and I’d say, ‘Peter, safety’s off,’ and he wouldn’t take the pistol. And he says, ‘Robo wants an Oreo.’ And I looked at him and I go, ‘No. It’s just you and I, Peter. Robo doesn’t get an Oreo. If Peter wants an Oreo, Peter can have an Oreo.’ And he clip-clops in the suit over the edge of the railing, and Peter starts bellowing, ‘Robo wants an Oreo!’ And the steel mill just echoes.”

Moore then says he quickly stuffed his mouth with the stack of Oreo cookies before Weller could get any. The end of the clip features a bemused but agitated Peter Weller denying the whole event. Weller gives his recollection saying, “I haven’t got a damn clue about Randy Moore and his f****n’ Oreos.”

Watch the Robo Wants An Oreo clip below.

With RoboCop officially headed back to screens via Amazon’s Prime Video series, it’s as good a time as any to rewatch the original and remember these funny bits of trivia. For more of the franchise’s ongoing legacy, check out our review of RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business.

RELATED: The 2014 RoboCop Remake Is Just As Good As The Original — And Nobody Wants To Admit It

Where to Stream RoboCop (1987)

RoboCop (1987) is streaming on Prime Video and is also available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Amazon Video, and Google Play Movies.