When Amazon recently bought MGM, they acquired the rights the studio’s full catalog of titles, along with the ability to remake a lot of those properties, as either film or TV shows, or both. According to a new report, the online retailer (and movie and TV studio, and streaming service through its Prime Video app) is now reading a whole slate of new content based on MGM classics.
Per the report, the MGM series with the most potential in Amazon’s eyes are Stargate, Legally Blonde, Fame, Barbershop, The Magnificent Seven, Pink Panther and The Thomas Crown Affair — and RoboCop, the beloved 1987 sci-fi action movie from director Paul Verhoeven.
Deadline says that “A-list creative auspices have reached out to inquire about adapting MGM IP which they are fans of. Additionally, Amazon Studios also has been leaning on its own roster of talent” to develop some of the above properties.” They also claim that RoboCop is being considered for “both film and TV, with a TV show possibly first.”
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The original Verhoeven RoboCop (written by Michael Miner & Edward Neumeier), spawned two sequels as well as a poorly received 2014 reboot. It was also spun off into several animated series and a few mostly unsuccessful attempts at live-action shows; the most recent, RoboCop: Prime Directives, debuted in 2001. There hasn’t been a new RoboCop on either screen since that 2014 movie, which did have the highest gross of any of the films to date ($242 million) but also cost way more than any of the movies movies did as well ($130 million).
Most of the subsidiary RoboCops have flopped, with critics if not with fans, but the concept is still a fascinating one. A human police officer gets gunned down in the line of duty and then Frankensteined back to life as a cyborg who must obey the orders of his commanding officers (and the evil corporation that owns the police in his dark future). Inevitably, he rebels against his venal masters and tries to reclaim his lost humanity. Given the state of the world in 2023, that idea probably has even more relevance than it did back in 1987.
Amazon’s plans to revive popular MGM properties are in addition to the company’s other efforts to mine the MGM library, including the previously reported Creed universe of movies and TV shows, and whatever Amazon winds up doing with the James Bond series, which is currently in between leading actors.
