After years of mostly online hype, District 9 and Chappie director Neill Blomkamp announced that he was no longer attached to the spiritual RoboCop sequel RoboCop Returns. The South African filmmaker revealed that he was no longer attached to the long-gestating project in a tweet early Thursday morning.
“Off Robocop,” he tweeted. “I am shooting new horror/thriller and MGM can’t wait/ need to shoot Robocop now. Excited to watch it in theaters with other fans.”
https://twitter.com/NeillBlomkamp/status/1161887748535439360
Aside from the tweet, Blomkamp has not responded to requests for comment from Entertainment Weekly or any other publications that have been following RoboCop Returns‘ ongoing development. So, all that is known at this time is what the director was willing to say in the aforementioned tweet, which comes down to a scheduling issue.
RoboCop Returns, as envisioned by Blomkamp and the writers of the original RoboCop sequel that the new film was to be based on, was imagined as a spiritual sequel to director Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 classic science-fiction and action satire film. What’s more, the District 9 director often talked about how much of an influence the Verhoeven original had on him as a young audience member and filmmaker. Sadly, though, it seems Blomkamp’s continuation of Verhoeven’s vision is never going to come to pass.
But hey, we’ll always have Chappie.
https://twitter.com/vineyille/status/580036338164039681
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
