10 Film Franchises That Became Something Else Entirely
5. Robocop
Despite sounding like it was tailor-made to sell toys, the first RoboCop movie is a really bloody affair.
The film has an 18 rating in the UK today and got the dreaded X rating from the American Motion Picture Association, which would have killed its initial theatrical run. Thankfully, the rating was eventually lowered, and fans got to see it.
The violence and gore was still present when Officer Alex Murphy returned for the sequel. Not for number 3 though. Number 3 was very different.
This movie was intentionally geared towards a family audience, so cut down massively on the violence and swearing. Not the swearing! That's the best part of this film series about a robotic police officer!
RoboCop 3 completely zapped the franchise of everything fans loved about it. It was meant to be an over-the-top bloodfest, but now it was just another sci-fi series designed to get pre-teens into movie theatres.
It failed at this, by the way, drawing less money than the original film despite having almost twice the budget.
At least RC can take some comfort knowing he's not the only android on this list.
He'll "be back" later.