Paul Verhoeven Is Working With James Wan on Amazon's ‘RoboCop’ Series

You just don’t remake Paul Verhoeven. That should be a general rule in Hollywood. It’s practically impossible to replicate the Dutch filmmaker’s masterful blend of social satire, sex and graphic violence.

With that in mind, this is totally unexpected: James Wan has revealed that Verhoeven is involved in Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming “RoboCop” series.

Wan dropped the news at the BlumFest panel at New York Comic Con late last week (via ScreenRant), but he wouldn’t say what Verhoeven’s role is. Wan is directing several episodes himself.

This matters because Verhoeven has kept his distance from this property for nearly four decades. He passed on directing the sequel and has stayed away from every film and TV attempt since. He also didn’t hide his feelings about the 2014 Joel Kinnaman reboot, which he criticized for gutting the original’s satire. So Verhoeven being involved, in whatever capacity, is a positive.

That said, the original “RoboCop” is close to untouchable. It was a gleefully violent satire of American capitalism. Nobody has come close to recapturing that, and the 2014 version was a disaster: empty and far too slick.

The new series follows a big tech conglomerate that partners with a local police department to roll out a part-man, part-machine enforcer to fight rising crime. Dan Stevens takes on the role, which is a genuinely interesting choice. The eight-episode series comes from showrunner Peter Ocko (“Lodge 49”). Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett executive produce.

Verhoeven turned 88 this summer. His last film was 2021’s “Benedetta,” which was actually shot in 2018, so it’s been eight years since he’s directed on a set. The struggle has been real. He was supposed to helm “Sans Compter” in France, but a falling-out with producer Saïd Ben Saïd got the project nixed. Soon after, he started pitching “Young Sinner,” an erotic thriller set in Washington, D.C. politics, written by his “Starship Troopers” screenwriter Ed Neumeier, but nobody has been willing to finance the damn thing. Hopefully we get one more film from Verhoeven, but things are looking bleak at the moment.

Still, Verhoeven’s place in cinema history is already secure: “RoboCop,” “Total Recall,” “Starship Troopers,” “Basic Instinct,” “Black Book,” “Elle.” He’s a true maverick who never played it safe, and Hollywood hasn’t produced anyone quite like him since.