(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



RoboCop statue finally installed in Detroit [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-12-08  

The future of Detroit's presented by 1987's Robocop was hardly inspiring: a blighted landscape where cops and robbers alike are pawns of the giant corporation redeveloping it. But after 38 years its satire of capitalism, consumerism and AI is sharper than ever, and after 15 years a warehoused statue of the character has finally been installed there.

A statue looming 11 feet tall (3.3 meters) and weighing 3,500 pounds (1,587 kilograms) has been drawing fans since it began standing guard over the Motor City on Wednesday afternoon, after about 15 years in the making. Even in a snowstorm in the dark, people were driving by to see it, said Jim Toscano, co-owner of the FREE AGE film production company where the bronze-cast statue now stands bolted near the sidewalk. … There was a time when Detroit pushed back on anything pointing to its past reputation as an unsafe city, and the movie, which developed a cult following, spawning two sequels and a reboot, didn't help its image.

Kickstarted in 2012 (previously at Boing Boing) and completed by Giorgio Gikas by 2017, the statue ended up in storage. It nearly ended up on display at the Michigan Science Center, but it ultimately passed on the opportunity. With crime and especially violent crime now down (and Delta City complete) the statue no longer rubs officials the wrong way and none objected to Robocop being deployed in the Eastern Market area.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/12/08/robocop-statue-finally-installed-in-detroit.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/