Amazon sets its sights on reviving MGM classics Robocop, Legally Blonde, and more

If it ain’t broke (and honestly, even if it is) reboot it: that’s the Amazon way. Per Deadline, Amazon Studios has been piling up its plate with existing MGM IP since acquiring the studio for $8.5 billion in March 2022. So far, the streamer has set its sights on roughly a dozen titles of interest for film and/or television development, including Robocop, Legally Blonde, Fame, Stargate, Barbershop, The Magnificent Seven, Pink Panther, and The Thomas Crown Affair.

Although so far, no projects appear to have moved beyond the inquiry stage, plans for each title differ; some are being shepherded towards TV adaptations (Fame, Barbershop, and The Magnificent Seven), other towards film (The Thomas Crown Affair, The Pink Panther), and Poltergeist towards a reboot nebulous enough to only be described as a “project” that’s a “possibility down the road.”

A few big-ticket items are slated to get the universe treatment and span both film and television. Amazon is reportedly in early conversations about a Legally Blonde movie (separate, it seems, from Mindy Kaling’s long-in-progress Legally Blonde 3) and television series. Stargate and Robocop are also being prepped for both treatments, with a Stargate movie and Robocop TV show kicking off each franchise reboot, respectively. Amazon had already announced plans to expand Creed across film and TV alongside franchise staple Michael B. Jordan; the studio also has a first-look film and TV deal with Sylvester Stallone that could include expanding the overarching Rocky franchise.

None of this, obviously, is new territory, but just how well-tread the IP Amazon’s interested in serves as an instructive temperature check for the industry right now. Robocop, Poltergeist, and Barbershop have all seen multiple sequels, while The Pink Panther and The Thomas Crown Affair have each been rebooted before. Stargate stretched an initial 1994 Roland Emmerich film into an entire universe, including Stargate SG-1, one of the longest-running science fiction shows to ever air on American television. Fame and Legally Blonde have both been turned into stage musicals; The Magnificent Seven (which itself is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai) has spawned three sequels, a remake, and a TV series.

With so much lined up, Amazon is clearly banking on the belief that audiences aren’t too stuffed to enjoy some second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) helpings of these Hollywood classics. Here’s hoping Amazon’s eyes aren’t too big for its stomach.