Peter Weller has had an impressive acting career stretching back to the early 1970s, but many still know him best for playing the titular lead of 1987’s RoboCop and 1990’s RoboCop 2. The former in particular has endured as one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, with Weller’s Alex Murphy being a police officer who was killed in the line of duty, then converted into a cyborg by a mega-corporation to carry out a campaign against crime. Don’t ask Weller to rewatch RoboCop anymore, however, because he has an emotional reason why he’ll never do that again.
The actor shared a video on his Instagram page of him speaking at a screening of RoboCop alongside Edward Neumeier, who co-wrote the script with Michael Miner, and others. Weller recalled him and Neumeier attending a RoboCop screening at the Egyptian Theater in 2017 that was held in honor of the late Miguel Ferrer, who played Bob Morton in the movie. After mentioning how he was insistent that everyone who was lined up for that screening be let in, to the point that he was willing to pay any fine that came with breaking the fire laws, Weller said:
We do the Q&A at the end, and I sit there and watch the movie. It’s the last time I’ve seen it, the last I will watch it, was with Ed. And I turn to Ed, and at the end of it… now I got a kid. Now I’m married. When I did RoboCop, I did not have a kid. I was not married. I did not live in a house. I did not have somebody who was in love with superheroes. Now I got a kid at this time watching this movie who’s in love with superheroes.
In 2006, Peter Weller married actress Shari Stowe, and they have a son together. So Weller’s son has been growing up in the era of superhero movies being one of Hollywood’s most popular genres. RoboCop came out two years before Tim Burton’s Batman gave the genre an early boost, but if you think about it, RoboCop is a superhero in a sense given his enhanced physical abilities and distinctive look.
Between his son’s love of superheroes and how different his personal life was compared to when he made RoboCop, that caused Peter Weller to view the movie through a new lens. Unfortunately, that killed any interest he had in rewatching RoboCop going forward, as he explained:
I watch this movie, I end up weeping at the end of it, taking me out of it. And I turn to Ed and I said, ‘This is a tragedy. This film is a tragedy.’ No matter what it brings back to humanity. ‘What’s your name, son?’ ‘Murphy.’ No matter what it is about the rebirth, the resurrection, as Aristotle said, of the third act of all brilliant scripts or plays, they’re all about resurrection. I sat there and wept. I turned to Ed, I said, ‘I ain’t watching this movie no more.’ And I am not.
Besides having the memories of working on RoboCop, I imagine Peter Weller had seen the movie plenty of times in the three decades between its release and Miguel Ferrer’s death. So not watching it again likely isn’t a huge loss for him, and clearly this won’t stop him from talking about RoboCop. Still, he is right about the tragedy part. Though Alex Murphy starts to regain his memories in the movie, it’s still heartbreaking that he can never return to his former life.
Whatever you think of the RoboCop property as a whole, there’s no question that the first movie still holds up with its political statement. In 2023, it was announced that Amazon MGM Studios was developing both a new RoboCop movie and television series. Peter Weller said last year that he’s amenable to returning for a reboot if “the script is good and the money is right,” but there’s been no official follow-up yet on what’s next for the franchise.
