Production
RoboCop 2 was directed by Irvin Kershner, rather than Paul Verhoeven, due to Verhoeven's commitment to directing Total Recall. It was based on a script by Frank Miller and Walon Green. Edward Neumeier, one of the screenwriters for the first film was originally planned to write, and had even written a first draft, but was forced to drop out of the project due to a writers strike. After the success of The Dark Knight Returns (comic book mini-series), Frank Miller was contacted by producer Jon Davison about writing the sequel. Miller enthusiastically accepted the offer, eager to make an impression in Hollywood the way he had in comics the past decade.
However, Miller's script was labeled "unfilmable" by producers and studio executives. His script was heavily changed through rewrites, and drastically re-written into what became RoboCop 2. Even when his tenure as screenwriter was officially over, Miller showed up on set everyday, eager to learn all about the filmmaking process from start-to-finish. He was even given a cameo as "Frank the chemist."
RoboCop is again played by Peter Weller, who played RoboCop in the first film. However, although a second sequel and a television series were made, this was the last time Weller played the role, due to complaints of how cumbersome and exhausting it was to wear the suit and also because Weller found RoboCop 2 to be a very negative and disappointing film to work on. He complained about some scenes not making into the final cut, "There was a couple of things that made the character more human that weren't used. I can't remember exactly what the scenes were, I just remember wondering why they weren't in." These deleted scenes have never been included on home video releases. Weller's co-star, Nancy Allen, also had negative feelings regarding the second film.
Despite not being directed by Paul Verhoeven, the director of the first film, RoboCop 2 contains many familiar Verhoeven touches, including satirical television commercials (such as for an ultra powerful sunblock to deal with the depletion of Earth's ozone layer which is itself carcinogenic) and ironically upbeat news broadcasts. The events in the second film closely follow the events in the first film (the ED-209 unit, for example, is mentioned as being deployed and malfunctioning).
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