RoboCop 2 (1990) – What Happened to This Sci-Fi Action Movie?

The 1987 sci-fi action classic RoboCop is one of those rare perfect movies. Everything about it works just right. The satire. The violence. The characters. The design of RoboCop himself. And it’s difficult to follow up perfection. Which is evident in RoboCop 2, a movie that tried to carry on the story… But ended up feeling tonally inconsistent and a bit scattered. It’s a fun movie, but not on the level of its predecessor. And now, we’re going to dig into just what happened to RoboCop 2.

Orion Pictures had a big hit on their hands with RoboCop, which they released on July 17, 1987. Made on a budget of just under fourteen million dollars, the film earned more than fifty-three million dollars at the box office. So, of course, Orion wanted to replicate that success as quickly as possible. They hired RoboCop writers Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner to write a script for the sequel. And gave them the warning that there would be a financial penalty if they didn’t turn the script in by the end of ‘87. Neumeier and Miner slapped together a rough draft and submitted it on January 1, 1988… but the script wasn’t even close to what Orion was hoping for. In fact, some have described it as incomprehensible. Titled RoboCop II: The Corporate Wars, it would begin with RoboCop being blown apart with a cannon while stopping a bank robbery. Jump ahead twenty-five years and Robo is rebooted in a world where TV comedian Bixby Snyder – the “I’ll buy that for a dollar” guy – has been elected President. And is dealing with an entrepreneur who wants to buy out the US government. Privileged citizens live in the cities, being served by robots. The “have nots” are exiled to shantytowns outside the city walls. Security officers work to push the outsiders away from city perimeters… and the outsiders are starting to fight back. During all of this, RoboCop is used as a pawn, interacts with a scientist and a hacker, and is hooked into a computer system. Where he finds a love interest. The story also involved a rapper from space called MoonDog. This was going to need a lot of rewrites… and they couldn’t be done by Neumeier and Miner. Because the Writers Guild went on strike.

With non-union writers needed, producer Jon Davison turned to the world of comic books. Watchmen and V for Vendetta creator Alan Moore declined the chance to work on RoboCop 2. So The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City creator Frank Miller gladly took the job. Over a series of drafts, Miller gave Orion something they could work with. Although his initial drafts were closer to what ended up being RoboCop 3 than what became RoboCop 2. With that troublesome company Omni Consumer Products forcing people out of their homes. So they can bulldoze old Detroit and replace it with Delta City. The city of the future. RoboCop ends up siding with the resistance fighters against OCP. Befriending a little girl who’s a computer whiz along the way. It all builds up to all-out war between the locals and OCP. And that all got pushed back into part 3. Walon Green, who received an Oscar nomination for his work on the classic Western The Wild Bunch, helped shape the script into what RoboCop 2 ended up being. Then Miller was kept on board to continue working on revisions throughout production.

In the first movie, OCP created RoboCop – building the cyborg around the remains of murdered police officer Alex Murphy – to eliminate crime. Making Detroit safe for their Delta City construction workers. Now they have shifted strategies. They fund the police department and are purposely running it into the ground. They want crime to run rampant. So Detroit will become a bankrupt hellhole. Then they can buy it out and make their Delta City dreams come true. The plan is working well, especially since there’s a highly addictive drug called Nuke on the streets. And this drug is so popular, there’s even a “Nuke cult” headed up by a cold-blooded former hippie named Cain. At the same time, OCP is also trying to make a sequel of their own. A second RoboCop. Trouble is, the new Robos, which are also made out of dead police officers, keep going mad and destroying themselves. So psychologist Juliette Faxx figures violent criminals might be better candidates. As they would enjoy the power and virtual immortality of becoming a cyborg. So, yes, Cain becomes RoboCop 2. As Faxx believes she can control him by keeping him supplied with Nuke. She also messes with the original Robo’s programming. Leading to a humorous sequence where he’s off his game for a while.

RoboCop director Paul Verhoeven was busy working on Total Recall. So the first choice to direct RoboCop 2 was Repo Man’s Alex Cox. But Cox took in a viewing of The Exorcist 2 while considering the offer. And decided that making sequels wasn’t for him. Next up was River’s Edge director Tim Hunter. It was felt that he would bring a dark sensibility and realistic tone to the project. And he was attached to it for a while. Most of the effects were designed under Hunter’s supervision. But he had issues with the script. And dropped out just eleven weeks before filming was scheduled to begin. The replacement director needed to be someone who had experience working on high profile films that required a lot of special effects. Especially since RoboCop 2 would have more complicated effects than the first movie. And bigger effects sequences. Including a battle between two cyborgs. So The Empire Strikes Back and Never Say Never Again director Irvin Kershner was brought in to do the job.

The first thing Kershner did was storyboard the major action scenes. When production began, he shot those first, sticking to the storyboards. Everything else on the production was looser. With Kershner often winging it and deciding how to direct scenes on location. With as little coverage as possible, because Orion wanted this movie to be done fast. Kershner didn’t mind. As he told Cinefantastique, “I was a documentary cameraman and director for years. Everything you do is seat-of-the-pants in documentaries, because you react to what is, and what you find. To me, that’s great fun. It’s a harrowing experience at times, but I love the challenge.”

Kershner liked the material. He said it gave him the chance to do “a wry, satiric comment on life in our time, on what’s happening to man. I find that the cyborg that is Robo is really a metaphor for people in our society. They’re becoming roboticized without knowing it. They’re so programmed, they’re practically programmed like Robo is. They can be programmed to be reactive in a very clever way, or to be totally stupid and nuts. And we show that.” Although it was a sequel to someone else’s film, he found a way to make it personal. And to keep on schedule, he would choose not to shoot scenes that were obviously destined to be cut. They had to trim the fat from the script. Unfortunately, some of what was trimmed would have added more emotional depth. Like extra scenes involving Robo’s memories of Alex Murphy’s family. An element that is ditched very quickly in the finished film.

Peter Weller had read the Neumeier and Miner script and wasn’t impressed. He passed on RoboCop 2. Orion didn’t care whether he came back or not. As far as they were concerned, “It’s like the Mummy, just put anybody under the bandages.” But, after reading the new script, Weller decided to return to the role of Robo. He was reluctant, but didn’t feel like he had gotten closure with the character. For the sequel, he was given a new suit. With a cool iridescent look. And it allowed him to be more mobile. The arc of his character was the most challenging thing about the sequel. Weller said, “RoboCop starts off in the pursuit of certain people, and then he’s reprogrammed and he becomes almost comical. He becomes kind of sadly impotent. And then he gets his life back and he becomes pretty brutal.”

Several other actors returned from the first movie. Nancy Allen as RoboCop’s partner Anne Lewis. Dan O’Herlihy and Felton Perry at OCP. Robert DoQui as Sergeant Warren Reed. Angie Bolling as Alex Murphy’s widow Ellen… who really should have been given more to do in the movie. Mario Machado and Leeza Gibbons as the hosts of Media Break. New additions include Tom Noonan, who can always be counted on to give a creepy performance, as Cain. Belinda Bauer as Juliette Faxx. Willard E. Pugh as the Mayor of Detroit. Galyn Görg as Cain’s lackey Angie. And Gabriel Damon as the most controversial character, Cain’s 13-year-old sidekick Hob. Critic Roger Ebert said that including this foul-mouthed, gun-toting kid in the film was “beneath contempt.”

Even while working on the movie, Weller still wasn’t satisfied with the script. And never would be. As he felt that the sequel didn’t have “the code, the spine, or the soul” of the first movie. He told The A.V. Club, “RoboCop 2 didn’t have a third act. I told the producers and Irv Kershner and Frank Miller. I told them all. I said, ‘Where’s the third act here, man?’ They said, ‘No, the monster’s going to be enough.’ I said, ‘Look, it’s not enough!’”

“The Monster” was the eight-foot-tall Cain cyborg. RoboCop 2. The creative team was determined to make RoboCop’s climactic battle with this beast extremely cool. So dazzling that viewers would be able to overlook any of the film’s shortcomings. Because at least they got to watch a cyborg battle. And it is pretty impressive. Featuring some great special effects that were overseen by Phil Tippett.

Although Orion rushed RoboCop 2 as quickly as they could, they couldn’t reach the Christmas 1989 release they had hoped for. The movie wasn’t ready to be sent out into the world until June 22, 1990. And it wasn’t received as well as its predecessor was, making less money on a higher budget. Made for somewhere around twenty-five to thirty million, RoboCop 2 earned just under forty-six million at the box office. Not a great success. And it took a beating from critics and viewers alike. As great as the special effects were, the story was underwhelming. And the tone was all over the place. It aimed at being funnier than the first movie. But mixed its goofier humor with some very dark and disturbing moments. It’s a strange blend.

RoboCop 2 ended up being the last feature film Irvin Kershner ever directed. Wrapping up a career that stretched back forty years. It wasn’t the best way to end – but not too bad. The movie is entertaining and has its fans… And at the very least, it’s much more popular with viewers than the next sequel would be.

The RoboCop franchise has continued over the decades. Mostly on TV and in comic books. In 2018, a movie called RoboCop Returns was announced. To be based on the original script Neumeier and Miner wrote for RoboCop 2. The project passed through the hands of directors Neill Blomkamp and Abe Forsythe. Weller was interested in playing Robo again, if the money was right. But RoboCop Returns never made it into production. So we still don’t know if that script had any chance of working on the screen. What we have is what Irvin Kershner, Frank Miller, and Walon Green were able to come up with. It’s not on the level of RoboCop. But it’s a fine RoboCop 2.

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