Original 'RoboCop' Movie Possibly Getting A Direct Sequel

For more than 30 years, RoboCop has been considered a seminal sci-fi action film whose over-the-top special effects and violence helped define an entire decade. One of the film's co-writers, Ed Neumeier, recently teased that he's currently working on a sequel to the original 1987 film.

"I had seen early screenings and people laughed at it so I thought: 'Oh it might be successful' and it was more successful than anybody really knew it would be," Neumeier told Zeitgeist of the original film's popularity. "I didn’t expect to be talking about it thirty years later. It was kind of the start of my career and later we did Starship Troopers – which was an enormous movie that took forever. I think all of that came out of that and it’s nice that people are still interested in RoboCop and they have me working on a new one at MGM right now so maybe we’ll get another one out of it."

The film became such a success that it earned two sequels, a reboot in 2014, multiple TV series and comic books. Neumeier claims he's going back to the original film's roots as his inspiration for this follow-up.

"Well, here’s what I’ll say. We’re not supposed to say too much," the writer admitted. "There’s been a bunch of other RoboCop movies and there was recently a remake and I would say this would be kind of going back to the old RoboCop we all love and starting there and going forward. So it’s a continuation really of the first movie. In my mind. So it’s a little bit more of the old school thing."

The film was created at a time when CGI was beginning to replace practical effects, making the film one of the last great sci-fi adventures of the '80s. The development of the film was also directly tied to the time period, according to Neumeier.

"I think it was my sense of humor. It was sort of how I look at things and way, way back in the 1980s when I was writing this, you were supposed to write action movies that were exciting, but you weren’t really supposed to write action movies that were funny or satirical and I always thought you could do that," the writer revealed of the film's origins. "In the '80s, that was kind of a satire about corporate America and a little bit about what was going on in law enforcement and policing and stuff like that. Those were topics that I thought I could write about in a fun way and luckily I hooked up with a bunch of talented people and the movie turned out really well."