To finish on RoboCop, some great behind the scenes pics 37/37

Miguel Ferrer (Bob Morton) had no idea what they were making during filming. When it released, he drove around all the cinemas showing RoboCop on opening night to watch people’s reactions. He said “that was one of the great thrills of my life.” 36/37

The film opened at no 1 at the US box office, earning $53.4m from a $13m budget. There was a special police screening where Neumeier thought there was going to be a backlash but they loved it. 35/37

Verhoeven saw RoboCop as an American Jesus. He had the ‘crucifixion’ scene at the start and, towards the end, he seems to walk on water. 34/37

One of the memorable scenes is when Emil is hit by toxic waste. Created by Rob Bottin and inspired by The Incredible Melting Man, a dummy of Emil was designed so the head would pop off on impact, while balloons filled with leftover food were thrown at the windshield. 33/37

The warehouse shootout sequence took over a week to shoot. Filming the ‘fight’ between RoboCop and Boddicker, Weller pulled Kurtwood Smith too hard and Smith ended up hitting Weller's chest plate, receiving a minor cut to the forehead. 32/37

With the rebirth scene, Verhoeven wanted the screen to go black for 30 seconds before kicking back into life. The studio said he could do 5 seconds but no longer. 31/37

Verhoeven wanted Murphy’s death to be as extreme as possible as the character has so little screen time, it would build audience empathy. The scene had to be cut to get past the ratings boards, mainly where his hand gets blasted off and then his arm follows. 30/37

Mr Kinney was played by Kevin Page and he had 200 squibs attached to his body. The effects team loaded bags of spaghetti squash and filled it with stage blood, strapped it to Page and put 10 squibs behind it to make it look like his guts were flying out. 29/37

Neumeier wrote ED-209 to mirror US car production of the time, a product that didn’t work. He came up with ED-209’s intro scene when he was a Universal Executive. He was in a meeting and daydreamed about a robot coming in and blasting people to smithereens. 28/37

Live-action animator Phil Tippett brought ED-209 to life with a series of rear projected stop-motion animated miniatures. It was voiced by Jon Davison and additional noises were used including a leopard for the roar and a pig squealing when ED-209 falls down the stairs. 27/37

One full-scale model of ED-209 was built. Standing 7ft and weighing 300 pounds, it was too big to move and Verhoeven had to act out what it would do in scenes to the actors on the set. 26/37

Weller said Yakim saved the film. He ripped out parts of the suit where there are joints, in the feet, in the back and Weller could move more freely. Yakim told Weller to move more slowly and more like a serpent and gradually, it all came together. 25/37

Weller practiced for months on how he would move as RoboCop. It took 11 hours to get in the suit first time and everything he rehearsed didn’t work in the suit. Head of Orion Mike Medavoy was ready to cancel production, until Julliard teacher Moni Yakim came aboard. 24/37

Weller claimed that the suit was so hot he lost 3 pounds per day in it. He was kept cool in between takes with electric fans and was connected by large ducts to free-standing air conditioning units. The suit later had a fan built into it. 23/37

Weller wore a bald cap to allow for the helmet to go on easily. Bottin created a flexible undersuit then a harness where you could hang solid pieces of the fibre glass exoskeleton. The suit was then attached to Weller in stages. 22/37

Because of the delays, the suit wasn’t delivered until the day of the first shoot and it was far too heavy. Weller said that Verhoeven had went crazy and everyone was arguing on set: “they were about ready to kill each other.” 21/37

Eventually, the suit was brought more in line with Bottin’s original concept: more human in design. In the words of Verhoeven “We f***ed it up completely.” He called it “a huge artistic explosion” between him and Bottin. 20/37

The studio loved Bottin’s early design’s but requested a few adjustments. Neumeier, Verhoeven and Bottin set to work on changing it which Bottin wasn’t happy with. He said that he done around 50 concepts for Robo, much more than he’d done on any other film. 19/37

Rob Bottin was approached by the studio to create the RoboCop suit because of his amazing work on The Thing. $1 million was allotted for the design of the suit and build of 6 working models for Weller to wear. 18/37

Verhoeven hired the composer he worked with on Fresh & Blood - Basil Poledouris – to write the music. The electronic percussion and synthesizer music represents the machine elements and the human part of the character is represented by the orchestra. 17/37

Ronny Cox had been stereotyped as playing nice guys. Because of this, Verhoeven cast him as Dick Jones. Cox said playing a villain was "about a gazillion times more fun than playing the good guys. Jones is an evil son of a bitch". 16/37

Smith threw himself into the role. He improvised the lines “can you fly, Bobby?” and “Give me my f***ing phone call” and also putting his fingers into Sal’s wine. 15/37

Verhoeven cast Smith specifically against type - at the time he was known for playing intellectual types. Verhoeven decided to have him wear glasses to have a disparity in the character’s actions and appearance. And also to draw comparisons to Henrich Himmler. 14/37

For villain Clarence Boddicker, Verhoeven wanted Kurtwood Smith. Smith thought it was going to be some crappy B movie until he looked up Verhoeven’s other work and said “Oh, my God! This guy’s great! This movie is gonna be much more interesting than I thought!” 13/37

Verhoeven requested Allen cut her long blonde curls for the role to desexualise her as he wanted no romantic connection to Murphy. Allen went to police academy training to learn how to shoot guns – and took advice from her Dad - a New York Cop. 12/37

Murphy’s sidekick is Lewis, and Stephanie Zimbalist was cast. She became available after her TV show, Remington Steele, was cancelled. After that was reversed though, Zimbalist had to pull out. Verhoeven turned to his second choice, Nancy Allen and cast her as Lewis. 11/37

Weller originally wanted to stay in character during the entire shoot and, for a time, responded only to being called Robo. He abandoned this after a few weeks when the crew made fun of him constantly. 10/37

Verhoeven got a call from an agent suggesting Peter Weller. Weller had martial arts training, was slender enough to fit in the RoboCop suit and was able to convey pathos with the bottom half of his face. He was cast by Verhoeven. 9/37

Rutger Hauer and Michael Ironside were top of Verhoeven’s list to star as Murphy but their physical frames were too big for the suit. Armand Assante and Arnold Schwarzenegger were also names mentioned. 8/37