Detroit’s long-promised RoboCop statue finally has a home in the city that it protects on screen. The 11-foot, 3,500-pound bronze statue now stands outside the Free Age film production company in Eastern Market, looking spot on in a way bronze statue replications of real-life figures often don’t, for some baffling reason.
It took 15 years to get that statue up, the AP reports. The idea was first proposed in 2010 when then-mayor Dave Bing responded to a tweet suggesting Detroit follow Philadelphia’s lead after putting up a statue of Rocky Balboa and adopt RoboCop as its own filmic mascot.
Bing politely said “no,” but the idea seemed to resonate with Detroiters. By 2012, more than 2,700 backers worldwide had raised over $67,000 on Kickstarter. Detroit sculptor Giorgio Gikas finished the statue in 2017, and then, with nowhere to put it, it vanished into storage.
The Michigan Science Center bailed on plans to host it in 2021, citing pandemic-era pressures, whatever that means. Wisconsin even tried to claim it thanks to star Peter Weller’s hometown roots. But Robocop is Detroit. That statue couldn’t be anywhere else.
Jim Toscano and the Free Age team bought their Eastern Market building three years ago and were soon asked if they wanted a Robocop statue. Toscano thought it was a joke. It wasn’t. And now the statue is bolted to the sidewalk.
There was once a time when Detroit was sensitive about the film series’ depiction of the city as a dystopian, cyberpunk, crime-ridden, gang-infested, drug-riddled, corporate-controlled police state hellscape. But with time, and likely a better understanding of the satire director Paul Verhoeven was going for in the first film, the city is embracing its giant robotic protector.
It helps that, even without a Robocop and just sure the sheer force of investing in your own infrastructure and citizenry, violent crime has fallen, and homicides are the lowest in decades. All the city needed was solid investment in its infrastructure and citizenry. It never needed a robot protector. But now, it has one. Just in case.
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