The District 9 director announced via his Twitter late last night that he will be departing MGM's RoboCop sequel due to scheduling conflicts. Blomkamp is hard at work on another horror/thriller, but MGM wants their robot hero back immediately.
This news comes about a year after Blomkamp was first hired to helm the film. The planned sequel uses a script by RoboCop writers Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, with rewrites from Justin Rhodes. This screenplay, written in the 1980s, was originally conceived as a sequel to the 1987 film, but never happened.
Of course, RoboCop has had sequels, video games, and TV adaptations already, as well as a poorly received 2014 remake. RoboCop Returns was reportedly going to wipe the slate clean and ignore all the other films, much like 2018's Halloween.
Credit: Orion Pictures
Many were excited to see what Blomkamp would do with the satirical cyberpunk property, especially since he has a pretty good handle on sci-fi and robots (although let's just forget Chappie ever happened). Blomkamp even talked about bringing back the original RoboCop, Peter Weller, to play the titular role.
MGM has not announced a replacement director as of yet.
Blomkamp fans might be used to this kind of news by now, since he also had an Alien sequel fall apart a few years ago. He continues to get work because he clearly has vision and some big, attractive ideas, but can't quite seem to click with studios.
This year, he released a short film, Conviction, as a prequel for a video game property.
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