Further commenting on how the “RoboCop” reboot should have been made more with the original film’s fans in mind, Joel Kinnaman didn’t necessarily criticize José Padilha’s vision for the material. In fact, given the stark differences between the original and the remake, Kinnaman thinks the film would have been better off if was forged as a new piece of hardware.
“It’s different when a new filmmaker comes in and puts his voice on it, and José had a very clear image of what he wanted to do,” Kinnaman observed for Comic Book. “It was an anti-Empirialistic take, and I think that movie would have done better if we had listened more to the fans beforehand. But I think it stands alone … I almost think the ‘RoboCop’ film we did would have been a better movie if it wouldn’t have been named ‘RoboCop.'”
Padilha’s 2014 version of “RoboCop” did solid business in theaters with a global box office take of nearly $243 million against a $120 million budget. However, the returns weren’t big enough for Sony Pictures Entertainment to continue with the franchise with Padilha and Kinnaman.
The most recent attempt to revive the character came in 2018 when it was announced that a new “RoboCop” movie was coming from “District 9” and “Chappie” director Neill Blomkamp. A year later, the reboot, titled “RoboCop Returns” — a reported sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s original “RoboCop” films — lost Blomkamp and the project has been languishing in development ever since.
