Today is “Robocop Day” in Detroit, commemorating the day cyborg Peter Weller liberated the city from the French in 1815. Ha, just kidding, MGM made it up to promote their DVD/Blu-ray release of the Robocop remake starring Joel Kinnaman. According to the press release, the event was to begin at noon, with the unveiling of the famous Robocop statue, followed by Robocop throwing out the first pitch at the Tigers game tonight, complete with “free cupcakes courtesy of Just Baked.”
Apparently the first-pitch thing is still happening, but the statue unveiling and meet-and-greet have been cancelled.
After reading conflicting reports online regarding the status of this event, we reached out to the Detroit Police Department and confirmed that the statue unveiling festivities that were supposed to happen at 1301 Third St. have been cancelled. This includes the presentation of the actual statue, the presentations, and the photo opps. There’s no word on what the status of the statue is now, or whether the festivities will be rescheduled. [DigitalTrends]
At first I just assumed that it was cancelled when the police realized they’d be diverting resources to promote a bland PG-13 remake instead of the real thing, but according to the Robocop Statute project’s official Facebook page, this is not the case:
ATTENTION ROBOCITIZENS: Despite false reporting with some media outlets [based on a press release from MGM], the RoboCop Statue WILL NOT be unveiled today. There was talk of participating in an event today and displaying some parts of the model. Unfortunately this proved to be logistically impossible. We plan on announcing the public location of the statue in the near future and when we are ready for a big reveal, you will be the first to know. In celebration of #ROBOCOPDay, the new Robo will be patrolling downtown today. Rumor has it he will be in Campus Martius at noon and the Theater District after that, before throwing out the first pitch at the Tiger game tonight. Excuse me, I have to go. Somewhere there is a crime happening.
Bummer. Oh well, I guess you can still see Robocop throw out a pitch, provided you want to go to a Tigers game.
Hey, you know what’d be way cooler than Robocop throwing out a first pitch? A giant, working model of ED-209 with two t-shirt cannons for guns. Someone please Kickstart that. Or maybe beers. CONTINUE PARTYING. YOU ALL HAVE 20 SECONDS TO COMPLY.
I think ED-209 is my all-time favorite movie character.