Early today, writer/director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) announced on his official Twitter account that he has exited MGM’s RoboCop sequel RoboCop Returns.

Instead, he’ll shoot a new “horror/thriller” that seemingly would happen first and MGM won’t be waiting around for him. Alluding to another director will be announced in the near future as the studio wants to begin shooting soon.

Off Robocop. I am shooting new horror/thriller and MGM can’t wait/ need to shoot Robocop now. Excited to watch it in theaters with other fans. N — Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) August 15, 2019

Blomkamp hasn’t had the best luck with projects lately with 20th Century Fox suddenly ending Alien 5 during it’s development/pre-production stages. This year was about to shoot Greenland starring Chris Evans only for him to pivot to RoboCop script development.

Neill was recently working with screenwriter Justin Rhodes (Terminator: Dark Fate) on a new draft of the script, said to be a direct sequel to the original 1987 film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Peter Weller.

Hopefully, this new horror/thriller will be worthwhile and he’ll actually get something made in the next year or so.

As for RoboCop Returns, MGM has yet to announce a replacement for Blomkamp and if they are indeed keen on getting filming underway we’ll start hearing names very soon.

SOURCE: NEILL BLOMKAMP