MGM Developing ‘RoboCop’ Prequel Series Focusing on Villainous Omni VP Dick Jones

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**reds8n**

https://bloody-disgusting.com/tv/3630968/mgm-developing-robocop-prequel-series-focusing-villainous-omni-vp-dick-jones/

“Dick, you’re fired.”

Before being shot several times and falling to his death out of a boardroom window, Dick Jones (portrayed by Ronny Cox) was the slimy, villainous, and extremely corrupt Senior Vice President of Omni Consumer Products.

While his death in RoboCop (1987) will be remembered as one of the all-time greats, his life could be celebrated in a brand new RoboCop prequel series that would also focus on the rise of Omni Consumer Products.

Digressing, after losing Neill Blomkamp to another horror endeavor, MGM and Orion recently hired Abe Forsythe to get behind the camera for RoboCop Returns, an official sequel that had been planned by the original 1987 film’s screenwriters Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, but was canceled when director Paul Verhoeven declined to direct the project and a WGA strike in 1988 followed [TheWrap].

Neumeier, who will also produce, revealed that he’s also currently working with MGM on the new RoboCop prequel series that would focus on the life of Dick Jones.

“I’m working at MGM on it,” he tells Moviehole while also noting:

“It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop.”

“I’m working with these two writers, Dave Parkin and Rob Gibbs, who bought this idea to a TV producer friend of mine, who then brought it to me. The first time I heard it I knew it was a cool idea because I could see a lot of things you could do with it. It’s such an interesting character.”

Speaking in regards to the original film’s social commentary: “There’s the idea of doing things about business and law enforcement in the city of Detroit a minute-and-a-half in the future, it would be a way to do all sorts of stories about business and tech, Silicon Valley, corporations, snakes in suits, cops, all that. It’s a wonderful rich tapestry.

“So we’ve been talking about it and I think we have an interesting story,” he continues. “It’s fun to work with a younger version of the Dick Jones we meet in RoboCop. He’s an actualized corporate predator [in the movie] but nobody necessarily starts out being the bad guy,” he notes.

“So it’s going to be about the evolution of Richard Jones to Dick Jones, the story of OCP and how the world moves into the future, how the corporate world behaves.”

There’s no formal go-ahead, but Neumeier hopes MGM can find the right partners to give the pilot a try.

As the site notes, think “Gotham” but set in Delta City, which begs the question, would you watch a RoboCop series without RoboCop?

It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop.

..uh huh ...

Not really sure you can make a movie out of horrific news reports and OTT adverts but looks like we'll find out.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Sadly, I doubt the satire will go far enough to out-do real life.

**warboss**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sadly, I doubt the satire will go far enough to out-do real life.

Yeah... considering that Naked Gun and the Snake Plisken "Escape From" films have become prophetic, I can't help but think that a prequel has no place to go but WAAAAY down from the original in the era of political correctness despite the fertile ground that the current climate is giving a prequel to lampoon. Everything will just end up directly being Dick Jones' fault since he'll be a stand in for the usual persona non grata in Hollywood.

**Easy E**

Barrel.... your bottom has now been scraped....

You're welcome!

**Voss**

Easy E wrote:
Barrel.... your bottom has now been scraped....

You're welcome!

Sadly, Hollywood can go deeper down. This is just a variation of Young Indiana Jones with a less important character (a sleezeball corpo stereotype)
This is just conceptually dull.

Gotham became dull as it started to center on Baby Bats, but this starts out with no place to go other than 'yep, proto villain did bad things, and slowly stops vaguely regretting them.'

**warboss**

Easy E wrote:
Barrel.... your bottom has now been scraped....

You're welcome!

Hollywood told me to tell you to hold their ethically sourced organic fair trade beer. There is always a lower bar to set! Live action Disney Thundarr the Barbarian! Kickboxer reimagined as a high school love story/drama where Jean Claude Van Damme is the gym teacher! Commando the Musical! They reject your bottom.

**Voss**

I'd honestly be somewhat intrigued by a Thundarr the Barbarian remake. Assuming they didn't just go with 'post apocalyptic future is magic, shut up!' cliche

**BobtheInquisitor**

Voss wrote:
I'd honestly be somewhat intrigued by a Thundarr the Barbarian remake. Assuming they didn't just go with 'post apocalyptic future is magic, shut up!' cliche

Huh?

Wasn’t that pretty much Thundarr in a nutshell?

**Overread**

This sounds like a bad idea.
"All the cool stuff that made Robocop - without robocop" I mean that's basically the whole of Robocop. The only other cool bit is the police and their struggles. At least that could have a story to it; showing the steady slide from order into chaos as the police are met with rising challenges and smaller budgets in a grim setting.

But the office guy and shady deals? It's either going to make him out to be a super villain or its going to be really dull as we see him undercut his competitors on paper.

**warboss**

Overread wrote:
This sounds like a bad idea.
"All the cool stuff that made Robocop - without robocop" I mean that's basically the whole of Robocop. The only other cool bit is the police and their struggles. At least that could have a story to it; showing the steady slide from order into chaos as the police are met with rising challenges and smaller budgets in a grim setting.

But the office guy and shady deals? It's either going to make him out to be a super villain or its going to be really dull as we see him undercut his competitors on paper.

I suppose it would be in the same vein as the Gotham CW show that was Batman without Batman for almost all of it supposedly (didn't watch any myself) and that Silence of the Lambs prequel without Hannibal. I agree with you but it seems to be a thing in Hollywood nowadays.

**Voss**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Voss wrote:
I'd honestly be somewhat intrigued by a Thundarr the Barbarian remake. Assuming they didn't just go with 'post apocalyptic future is magic, shut up!' cliche

Huh?

Wasn’t that pretty much Thundarr in a nutshell?

I'm presuming a real backstory would be worked in.
Part of its nostalgia, but I really want someone to redeem that genre at some point. So much potential, but I hate almost every show/book/movie/game that attempts it. And there are sooooo many.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Overread wrote:
This sounds like a bad idea.
"All the cool stuff that made Robocop - without robocop" I mean that's basically the whole of Robocop. The only other cool bit is the police and their struggles. At least that could have a story to it; showing the steady slide from order into chaos as the police are met with rising challenges and smaller budgets in a grim setting.

But the office guy and shady deals? It's either going to make him out to be a super villain or its going to be really dull as we see him undercut his competitors on paper.

If it shows OCP orchestrating that decline, it could work with a set story arc.

**Kid_Kyoto**

They're looking in the wrong direction. They should be doing Robocop 25 years later, with Robo fighting against police brutality, and corporate control.

Robocop #resistance

You're welcome MGM.

**Overread**

I just don't quite get the idea of a "Robocop" film being without Robocop. I could have cottoned onto it more back with the classic series when we had 3 Robocop films and the stage was ripe with interest that they could have gone back to do a prequel showing the decline of the original city and the rise of the megacorp alongside. Perhaps even using it as an excuse to show the origin story of some of the other key characters that rose up in the series and held positions etc...

Instead they are doing it after a single film that, whilst visually good, I felt missed some of the points of Robocop in general.

**Kid_Kyoto**

What it could be is someone had an idea for a near future evil corporation series and someone else said 'let's hang Robocop prequel on it to get some traction'.

Because Robocop prequel is going to get a lot more looks than 'generic evil corporation show'. Then, they hope, the quality of the show will keep us tuning in even without Robocop.

**warboss**

I anxiously await the next Dredd series announcement telling us that it'll be a prequel focused on the story of the Megacity One radio dispatcher that sends the judges (including Dredd though it won't feature him) to locations of crimes.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
They're looking in the wrong direction. They should be doing Robocop 25 years later, with Robo fighting against police brutality, and corporate control.

Robocop #resistance

You're welcome MGM.

Pass. There is no reason for this to be as glum and dystopian as modern Star Trek.

**DalekCheese**

reds8n wrote:
https://bloody-disgusting.com/tv/3630968/mgm-developing-robocop-prequel-series-focusing-villainous-omni-vp-dick-jones/

“Dick, you’re fired.”

Before being shot several times and falling to his death out of a boardroom window, Dick Jones (portrayed by Ronny Cox) was the slimy, villainous, and extremely corrupt Senior Vice President of Omni Consumer Products.

While his death in RoboCop (1987) will be remembered as one of the all-time greats, his life could be celebrated in a brand new RoboCop prequel series that would also focus on the rise of Omni Consumer Products.

Digressing, after losing Neill Blomkamp to another horror endeavor, MGM and Orion recently hired Abe Forsythe to get behind the camera for RoboCop Returns, an official sequel that had been planned by the original 1987 film’s screenwriters Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, but was canceled when director Paul Verhoeven declined to direct the project and a WGA strike in 1988 followed [TheWrap].

Neumeier, who will also produce, revealed that he’s also currently working with MGM on the new RoboCop prequel series that would focus on the life of Dick Jones.

“I’m working at MGM on it,” he tells Moviehole while also noting:

“It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop.”

“I’m working with these two writers, Dave Parkin and Rob Gibbs, who bought this idea to a TV producer friend of mine, who then brought it to me. The first time I heard it I knew it was a cool idea because I could see a lot of things you could do with it. It’s such an interesting character.”

Speaking in regards to the original film’s social commentary: “There’s the idea of doing things about business and law enforcement in the city of Detroit a minute-and-a-half in the future, it would be a way to do all sorts of stories about business and tech, Silicon Valley, corporations, snakes in suits, cops, all that. It’s a wonderful rich tapestry.

“So we’ve been talking about it and I think we have an interesting story,” he continues. “It’s fun to work with a younger version of the Dick Jones we meet in RoboCop. He’s an actualized corporate predator [in the movie] but nobody necessarily starts out being the bad guy,” he notes.

“So it’s going to be about the evolution of Richard Jones to Dick Jones, the story of OCP and how the world moves into the future, how the corporate world behaves.”

There’s no formal go-ahead, but Neumeier hopes MGM can find the right partners to give the pilot a try.

As the site notes, think “Gotham” but set in Delta City, which begs the question, would you watch a RoboCop series without RoboCop?

It has all the cool stuff about RoboCop except no RoboCop.

..uh huh ...

Not really sure you can make a movie out of horrific news reports and OTT adverts but looks like we'll find out.

And in similar news, “That Guy In The Hat of Scene 12 of Episode 1 of Terror of the Axons” will be getting his own movie series!