Prime Video has found its new RoboCop.
Dan Stevens has been cast as Alex Murphy/RoboCop in Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming live-action RoboCop television series, taking on one of science fiction’s most recognizable roles. The casting comes just over a month after Prime Video officially gave the project an eight-episode series order.
Stevens has built an increasingly diverse résumé in recent years, with credits including The Guest, Downton Abbey, Beauty and the Beast, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Cuckoo and Netflix’s Zero Day. Now, he’ll step into a role most famously played by Peter Weller in Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original.
The new series will retain the central premise of the RoboCop franchise. According to the official logline, a massive technology conglomerate convinces a city to add a powerful robot to its police force, with the machine implanted with the consciousness of a beloved officer who was killed in the line of duty.
Peter Ocko, whose credits include Lodge 49 and Black Sails, will serve as writer, showrunner and executive producer. James Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett will executive produce through Blumhouse Atomic Monster, with Danielle Bozzone serving as co-executive producer.
The series will also have some important connections to the original film. RoboCop co-creators and co-writers Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner are aboard as executive producers.
RoboCop [Orion Pictures]
Wan previously spoke about his excitement for the project and the opportunity to revisit themes that helped make the original film so enduring, including technology, identity and corporate power. The producer said the team intends to honor what made Verhoeven’s film iconic while creating something new for a modern audience.
The original RoboCop hit theaters in 1987 and became a sci-fi classic, blending graphic action with sharp satire of corporate greed, privatization and consumer culture. Weller returned for RoboCop 2 in 1990 before Robert Burke took over the role in 1993’s RoboCop 3. The franchise was later rebooted on the big screen in 2014 with Joel Kinnaman as Murphy.
The franchise has continued beyond the movies through television, comics and video games, most recently finding success in gaming with RoboCop: Rogue City.
Prime Video has not yet announced a premiere date for the new RoboCop series.
