If you thought you couldn’t get any more excited about Neill Blomkamp’s upcoming RoboCop sequel, RoboCop Returns, get ready, because the director just revealed who he wants inside the robo suit — and odds are it’s the same guy you want.
Responding to a fan on Twitter, Blomkamp revealed that he’s hoping for none other than original RoboCop star Peter Weller to suit up for his new film.
Peter Weller
— Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) August 13, 2018
This hardly serves as confirmation that Weller will actually reprise his best-known role for the film. It could simply be Blomkamp showing his respect for the actor — but it could also represent how the director feels about his film’s casting. Weller is 71 years old, and so far he’s shown no real sign that he’d even be willing to play RoboCop again, but if he does return, it would certainly fit into the current Hollywood landscape. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be 72 the next time he plays the Terminator, Sylvester Stallone will be 73 the next time he plays Rambo, and then there’s Harrison Ford, who returned as Han Solo at 73, Rick Deckard at 75, and is set to play Indiana Jones again at 79. So in a way, it would almost be surprising if the septuagenarian Weller didn’t play RoboCop again.
For his part, Weller hasn’t exactly been languishing in retirement. He’s set to appear in the new Fred Armisen/Maya Rudolph comedy series Forever later this year, and last year finished up runs on Longmire and The Last Ship. It has, however, been five years since he appeared in a major studio film: 2013’s Star Trek: Into Darkness, where he played the villain Marcus (and was arguably the best part of the whole movie).
Does Peter Weller have another RoboCop movie in him? Neill Blomkamp seems to think so, and frankly, so do we.