Once upon a time, we got a remake of RoboCop starring Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton… and the results were, let’s just say, mixed at best. The film looked great but lacked the edge of the original 1987 classic. In a recent interview with The Playlist Podcast, Kinnaman revealed where he felt the reboot went wrong.
“I had to quell all my instincts for everything over the course of that film,” Kinnaman said. “I’m like, ‘Why am I wearing a black suit?’ That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
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The actor also addressed the much tamer PG-13 rating, which he didn’t expect when he first signed on with the project
“The first interview I did for ‘RoboCop,’ and it was right after I was cast…I got the first questions for ‘RoboCop,’ and the question was, ‘So, is it going to be R-rated?’ And I was like, ‘Of course, it’s going to be R-rated! Only an idiot would make ‘RoboCop’ a PG-13 movie.’ Cut to the next morning—47 missed calls I woke up to.”
Finally, Kinnaman acknowledged that one of the film’s biggest failures was its lack of understanding as to what made the original film work so well.
“What I feel like the whole movie didn’t take into account is what the fans loved about [the original [‘RoboCop’],” Kinnaman continued. “And you have to pay homage to that. And I think the producers and the filmmakers and me included didn’t really understand how to do that in the right way. I think it’s a really solid movie, it just didn’t fit the ‘RoboCop’ concept.”
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At any rate, we’re bound for a reboot/sequel to RoboCop at some point in the future. Hopefully it will give the fans more of what they want.
As for Kinnaman, you can check him out in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which is set to hit theaters and HBO Max on August 6, 2021.
