Joel Kinnaman’s $130 Million Sci-Fi Reboot That Divided Critics Gets a Shot at Redemption 12 Years Later

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Published Mar 7, 2026, 4:40 PM EST

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Around a decade ago, Hollywood studios decided that the best way to reboot a piece of IP would be to hire relatively inexperienced filmmakers and up-and-coming stars, placing them in positions of authority. Ridley Scott didn't approve of this strategy; he said in an interview that experience is underrated, and the only reason he gets films across the finish line quickly is because he knows how to handle large budgets. Young directors with only an indie or two under their belt wouldn't know what to do. This trend was evident when Gareth Edwards was hired to direct Godzilla, after breaking out with a tiny sci-fi movie titled Monsters. It was also evident when the Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha was tasked with rebooting the RoboCop franchise, perhaps because he'd made a couple of blockbuster movies about the police in his home country.

The film was headlined by the Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman, who had broken out with the film Snabba Cash. He was coming up at around the same time as his compatriot Alexander Skarsgård, who went on to star in another reboot, The Legend of Tarzan. Kinnaman was surrounded by highly respected veterans in the RoboCop remake, including Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson. However, despite the stacked cast, a talented director at the helm, and unending opportunity for sociopolitical commentary, the RoboCop remake didn't perform as well as expected.

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The movie grossed a little less than $250 million worldwide against a reported budget of $130 million. It earned mixed reviews, and is now sitting at a 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website's consensus reads, "While it's far better than it could have been, José Padilha's RoboCop remake fails to offer a significant improvement over the original." Fans of the franchise were certainly not impressed; they gave it a 49% score on Rotten Tomatoes. One person remarked, "An insult to the original. Garbage." Kinnaman went on to play one of the leads in David Ayer's Suicide Squad, replacing Tom Hardy. He reprised the role in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. He also played the lead in Netflix's Altered Carbon.