Peter Weller has been in some of the most acclaimed films of the 80s and 90s. He starred in Buckaroo Banzai, Mighty Aphrodite, The New Age, and Naked Lunch. In the 2000s and 2010s, he played Christopher Henderson and Stan Liddy in the fifth seasons of 24 and Dexter respectively. In film, he most popularly appeared as Alexander Marcus in 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness.
People over the years have mostly associated Weller with his iconic role of Alex Murphy in 1987’s RoboCop. The thrilling and thought-provoking sci-fi flick became a groundbreaking yet misunderstood film at the time, similar to Blade Runner. However, director Paul Verhoeven initially felt the script was too alien to him and far removed from his previous works.
Paul Verhoeven Initially Tossed Away RoboCop‘s Script
The 1987 RoboCop film led by Peter Weller showed a futuristic Detroit where crime has become rampant. Weller’s Alex Murphy is revived as the cyborg RoboCop following his murder. The film had terrific action with a great blend of science-fiction and human themes.
However, director Paul Verhoeven had not attempted a film at such a huge scale and found it hard to commit to a fantastical project, as his previous works were all grounded stories (Soldier of Orange, The 4th Man, etc). When Edward Neumeier came up to Verhoeven with the script for RoboCop, it failed to draw him in. In an interview with GamesRadar, Verhoeven stated that he threw away the script after reading 15 pages.
He found it way beyond his comfort zone, and the themes to be far-fetched. However, the director changed his mind after he got to know his wife’s intriguing interpretation of the script, which cleared out all his confusion and even started to relate to the story’s themes. He said,
“I read about 15 pages and threw it away. It was so far away from the films I’d made. They were much more based on reality and certainly not science fiction. That subtitle, ‘the future of law enforcement’, seemed completely alien to me. She read it in a completely different way: she felt there were elements that weren’t so far away from me, like [main character Murphy] losing his past, and the philosophy of losing your memory.”
The film has a thought-provoking throughline about loss and becoming a new type of being. Thus, Verhoeven slowly came to realize these exciting intricacies within the script and executed a film that is much more than an average sci-fi actioner. The film was a box office hit grossing $54 million (via The Numbers) and Weller returned for a sequel titled Robocop 2, which did not fare well compared to the first film.
Paul Verhoeven Was Critical of the 2014 RoboCop’s Depiction as a Tragic Hero
Peter Weller‘s RoboCop was one of the seminal sci-fi films of the 80s and presented a human that has evolved into a cyborg after being brutally murdered. While he gets flashes of memories of his past, RoboCop does not dwell on it much and is focused on what’s at stake in the present. Director Paul Verhoeven feels that the 2014 remake’s deviation from this approach was the reason for its failure.
Verhoeven stated that the 2014 RoboCop led by John Kinnaman turned the character into a tragic figure by keeping his memories intact. The director thinks that this approach led to a very somber tone which became a detriment to the film overall and it was a mistake in the first place. He told Metrograph,
“The problem [with 2014’s RoboCop], I felt, was that he was really aware that he lost all his legs and arms. He knows it from the very beginning. The beautiful thing about the original RoboCop, what makes it not just pure tragedy or whatever is that he really does not know anymore. He gets a couple of vague flashes of memory… But when we see him again as a robot, he doesn’t feel that. In the new one, because he remembers everything, he’s much more tragic. In my opinion, I thought it was a problem to make him more tragic.”
The 2014 RoboCop was a failure at the box office and plans for a sequel were ultimately cancelled. Amazon is reviving the RoboCop franchise and it was announced that a new RoboCop series and a movie are in development (via Deadline). It remains to be whether a great RoboCop project will come to fruition in the near future.
Watch Peter Weller’s 1987 film, RoboCop, on Max.
