The stodgy remake of a timeless great with a reboot and prequel already in the works disobeys streaming orders

Despite what studio executives would want you to believe, there’s absolutely no harm in a movie existing as a standalone piece of cinema that does its thing before being left the hell alone, but that was never going to be the case once Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop instantly established itself as an all-time great of the action genre.

Since that fateful day over 35 years ago when audiences first met the title character who was part man, part machine, and all cop, the franchise has delivered a pair of sequels that could generously be called disappointing, a duo of animated offshoots, a pair of live-action TV shows, and a remake which was confident enough to announce a sequel before it was abandoned.

And yet, even though 2014’s RoboCop was panned by critics and fans of the original alike, Amazon’s acquisition of MGM has ensured the IP is far from dead. The last we heard, there was another reboot going by RoboCop Returns in the works that formerly had District 9’s Neill Blomkamp attached to direct, as well as the episodic prequel focusing on Dick Jones that nobody asked for.

The enhanced officer’s last big screen outing may have earned a decent enough $242 million at the box office, but that still wasn’t enough to guarantee Joel Kinnaman a stay of execution in the lead. However, audiences are still watching it on streaming, with FlixPatrol naming director José Padilha’s do-over as one of the most-watched features on iTunes.

Do we need more RoboCop in our lives? No, but we’re getting anyway, because that’s how these things work.