The statue looms and glints at more than 11 feet tall and weighing 3,500 pounds, looking out at the city with, how to put it … a characteristically stern expression?
Despite its daunting appearance and history as a crimefighter of last resort, the giant new bronze figure of the movie character RoboCop is being seen as a symbol of hope, drawing fans and eliciting selfie mania since it began standing guard over Detroit on Wednesday afternoon.
It has been 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 statue now stands firmly bolted down near the sidewalk.
RoboCop hit theaters in 1987, portraying a near-future Detroit as crime-ridden and poorly protected by a beleaguered and outgunned police force, until actor Peter Weller appeared as a nearly invincible cyborg, apparently created by a nefarious corporation bent on privatizing policing.
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.
But with violent crime trending down for years and homicide numbers now below mid-1960s levels there is less pushback and city officials offered no objections to the statue’s installation, Toscano said.
“Detroit has come a long way. You put in a little nostalgia and that helps,” he said.
The statue campaign appears to have started around 2010 when Detroit’s mayor, Dave Bing, was tagged in a tweet that noted Philadelphia’s statue of the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa and said RoboCop would be a “GREAT ambassador for Detroit”.
Bing tweeted back, saying there were no such plans. But some Detroiters ran with the idea, crowdfunding it through a 2012 Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $67,000 from more than 2,700 backers worldwide, and Detroit sculptor Giorgio Gikas finished the statue in 2017. Then, it got stuck, stored away from public view.
The Michigan Science Center in Detroit ultimately nixed plans to host the sculpture in 2021, citing pressures from the coronavirus pandemic and the need to focus museum resources.
Things remained in limbo until about three years ago when Toscano’s company bought a building in Eastern Market, an open-air produce market, shopping and entertainment district just northeast of downtown. Toscano says he thought they were “kidding” when he was contacted by the creator of the statue idea and Eastern Market officials. But he and his business partner gladly came on board: “It’s too unusual, too unique, too cool not to do,” Toscano said.
Toscano, 48, says he has only viewed the first RoboCop movie.
“It wasn’t a big film in our house,” he admitted. But if there is one iconic line uttered by RoboCop that fits this moment, Toscano said it would be: “Thank you for your cooperation.”
On Thursday, James Campbell approached the statue and told three picture-takers: “I own this. Do you guys know that?” the Associated Press reported.
Campbell said he donated $100 to the original Kickstarter campaign over a decade ago, which makes him a “0.038 percent owner of this statue”.
“I’m here to see this big, beautiful, bronze piece of art,” he said. “What a piece of cinematic history to represent the city of Detroit,” he added.
Campbell called the statue a symbol of hope: “He’s a cyborg crime fighter! In the movie, in the futuristic Detroit, he’s there to save the city,” he said.
