RoboCop Remake Goes Viral, Again
OCP presents the Future of Law Enforcement.
This article is more than 2 years old
We haven’t heard a lot about Jose Padhila’s remake of Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 future-noir classic RoboCop since we learned that the release would be delayed until February 7, 2014. For now, however, the film is going to be all over San Diego Comic Con, which means we’ll likely be hearing some news, but in advance of anything we learn there, the production has launched a new viral website, full of photos, a new video, and more goodies to play with.
The pictures and video from OmniCorp.com-they have our future under control-gives you a look at some of the robotic military and law enforcement technology the ubiquitous company has to offer. There are unmanned drones and ED-209 (nowhere near as fierce or intimidating as the original, which was like a wild, rampaging beast). This footage also teases the next phase of OmniCorps evolution, or as they say, “Where human resources meets robotic engineering.”
We all know what that means, RoboCop. To get the prototype all they have to do is wait for an enthusiastic volunteer, and by that I mean they have to wait for a cop to get shot all to hell so they can combine his near-carcass with state of the art tech and create an ass kicking cybernetic justice dispensing machine.
We can go back and forth about whether or not the world really needs a RoboCop remake nor not. I’m of the opinion that the first one, with its satiric violence and Verhoeven’s wing nut sensibilities, is damn near perfect, so you can imagine where I come down on this topic. All that sound and fury signifies exactly squat, because we don’t have a say in the matter, do we? Still, say what we may, it sounds like they at least got the story pretty close. (Though again, if you’re telling the same exact story, why bother?)
Set in 2028, a year far enough in the future to be more advanced, but close enough to be relatable to audiences, OmniCorp wants to bring some of their battlefield innovations to help out in the war at home, the war against crime. Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnamen, The Killing) is an honest Detroit cop, trying to do right by his wife, child, and beloved hometown. After sustaining a mortal injury in the line of duty, Murphy becomes OmniCorp’s first volunteer, and is reborn in a manner of speaking, and sent to patrol the streets again, only this time it’s a whole different world.
Being pushed back is rarely a good sign, and could indicate host of potential problems with the production. Then again, World War Z had a ton of issues and turned out okay. And RoboCop will likely lean heavily on special effects work, so maybe they just needed more time to get things right. Still, the date is problematic. The post-holiday months like January and February are often a barren cinematic wasteland where studios dump movies they don’t believe in, have lost faith in, or just didn’t turn out as well as expected. We’ll have to wait until next year to see if this is really the case, but that’s a worry that is going to linger.
