Exclusive: RoboCop Series In The Works For Amazon, John Cena Eyed And Plot Details Revealed
A RoboCop TV series is being developed for Amazon, with both Peter Weller returning to mentor a new character who producers hope will be played by John Cena.
It was a completely different cyborg who uttered the classic phrase “I’ll be back,” but apparently RoboCop is returning anyway. Our trusted and proven sources tell us a new RoboCop series is in development at Amazon that will act as a sequel to at least the first film. Producers want John Cena to lead the series as a new RoboCop who will be mentored by the original — Alex Murphy — who will once again be played by Peter Weller.
The show will debut a new cybernetic lawman named Marc Kyle. Unlike Weller’s Alex Murphy, Kyle will start off as a soldier rather than a police officer. Just as Murphy experiences in the first RoboCop, John Cena’s potential character will die — in a war rather than being executed by crooks — before being remade as a cyborg and beginning his new life under Murphy’s tutelage.
After the success of HBO Max‘s Peacemaker, it’s tempting to speculate the DC series has something to do with RoboCop‘s producers having John Cena high on their wishlist. Not only is he a popular star, but the success of the series would no doubt depend heavily on the chemistry between Weller and the younger actor. If you’ve seen Peacemaker, then you no doubt remember how wonderfully Cena worked with the older Robert Patrick (Terminator 2), who played the titular vigilante’s abusive white supremacist father.
We’re not sure if Edward Neumeier, who co-wrote the first film with Michael Miner, is involved in the Amazon series, but it seems likely. Neumeier has been trying to get different RoboCop revivals off the ground since at least 2018. Back then Neumeier planned a new movie, RoboCop Returns, that would act as a sequel to the original 1987 film and would ignore the two sequels as well as the 2014 reboot. Neil Blomkamp (District 9) was attached to direct, but last time any news surfaced about the project, Abe Forsythe (Wolf Like Me) had replaced Blomkamp in the director’s chair.
Then in 2020, MovieHole reported that Neumeier was developing a prequel series focusing on Ronny Cox’s villain Dick Jones and the rise of the same corporation, Omni Consumer Products, that creates RoboCop.
Whatever has held up or killed the other projects behind the scenes, the acquisition of MGM by Amazon could help get things going on Neumeier’s franchise. Particularly if RoboCop recruits John Cena, it could end whatever stalemate is keeping the franchise at a standstill during a time when popular franchises are being resuscitated faster than you can say “I’d buy that for a dollar!
