RoboCop
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49 free RoboCop trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
RoboCop is the film Paul Verhoeven rejected twice because he could not see the joke. Once his wife told him the story was about a man losing his identity, he made a Detroit dystopia in Dallas, dressed Peter Weller in a costume that cost him pounds of sweat a day, and fought the ratings board eight times over a boardroom demonstration that goes badly wrong. These 49 questions cover the 1987 original and its franchise: Edward Neumeier's Blade Runner-set inspiration, Orion's preference for Schwarzenegger, the Old Man modelled on Lew Wasserman, the three prime directives and the classified fourth, ED-209's leopard roar and 20 seconds to comply, the Auto-9 pistol, the Ford Taurus police cars, the 6000 SUX, Emil's melting, the steel mill in Monessen, the Oscar for sound editing, the Nixon VHS promotion, Frank Miller's sequel scripts, the 2014 reboot and Rogue City. Easy questions stick to the hero, the city and the villains; the hardest ask about matte painters, mime coaches and test-screening scores. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a 1980s movie night.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which words complete RoboCop's famous warning to criminals, "Dead or alive, you're…"?
coming with me
Coming with me. Murphy says it to a gang member before he is murdered, so when the armoured RoboCop repeats the line, the terrified crook realises who is inside.
Q 02Before the RoboCop costume was ready, which sport's protective gear did Peter Weller wear to rehearse the character's movements?
American football
American football. He drilled in the pads for months, even in Central Park, but the real suit arrived two weeks into filming and he found he could barely move in it.
Q 03In which city is RoboCop set?
Detroit
Detroit. The filmmakers scouted the real city and decided its skyline did not look futuristic enough, so another city stood in for it on screen.
Q 04In the RoboCop films, what do the initials of the megacorporation OCP stand for?
Omni Consumer Products
Omni Consumer Products. In the first film the near-bankrupt city signs over its police force for the company to fund and run, and the firm sets about replacing officers with machines.
Q 05Who plays crime lord Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop?
Kurtwood Smith
Kurtwood Smith. The script gave Boddicker glasses so he would resemble Heinrich Himmler, but nobody told Smith, who took them as an intellectual front for a smirking drug kingpin.
Q 06In RoboCop, what everyday obstacle defeats the ED-209 droid as it chases the hero through OCP headquarters?
A flight of stairs
A flight of stairs. RoboCop lures the heavily armed droid onto them, and steps too small for its feet send it crashing to the bottom.
Q 07Which actor plays OCP senior president Dick Jones in RoboCop?
Ronny Cox
Ronny Cox. Since Deliverance he had been typecast as the nice guy next door; playing a ruthless executive changed that and brought him a run of villains.
Q 08Who plays Bob Morton, the junior executive behind the RoboCop project, in the 1987 film?
Miguel Ferrer
Miguel Ferrer. He had no idea whether the film would turn out good or silly, yet he later called the 1986 shoot maybe the best summer of his life.
Q 09Who plays Murphy's partner Anne Lewis in RoboCop?
Nancy Allen
Nancy Allen. Verhoeven had her crop her long blonde hair and told her to eat a lot, so that nobody would expect a romance between the two partners.
Q 10Which revived detective series cost Stephanie Zimbalist her RoboCop role and Pierce Brosnan his first Bond?
Remington Steele
Remington Steele. NBC cancelled the show, then changed its mind days before its hold on the two stars ran out, so both had to give up their film roles.
Q 11In RoboCop, what does the classified fourth prime directive stop the hero from doing?
Arresting OCP executives
Arresting OCP executives. When he tries to arrest the executive his killer works for, the hidden rule shuts his body down, because the company will not let its own creation turn on it.
Q 12How does the Old Man nullify Directive 4 in RoboCop's finale?
He fires Jones
He fires Jones. Taken hostage in his own boardroom, the Old Man shouts "Dick, you're fired!", and RoboCop, free to act at last, thanks him and shoots.
Q 13How does Lewis first suspect that RoboCop is Murphy?
The way he holsters his gun
Q 21RoboCop's public prime directives are "Serve the public trust", "Uphold the law" and which other order?
Protect the innocent
Protect the innocent. All three are programmed into him, and it is the order to uphold the law that later stops him killing Boddicker in revenge.
Q 22In RoboCop, TV host Bixby Snyder was written as an extreme American version of which comedian?
Benny Hill
Benny Hill. The leering host is never named on screen, yet his catchphrase, "I'd buy that for a dollar!", became one of the film's most quoted lines.
Q 23Which radio host turned down a part in RoboCop because he thought the film looked stupid?
Howard Stern
The way he holsters his gun. Murphy copied the pistol spin from T.J. Lazer, the TV cop his young son idolised, and the habit survives his rebuilding as a machine.
Q 14Edward Neumeier conceived RoboCop while working unofficially on the set of which 1982 film?
Blade Runner
Blade Runner. Then a junior studio executive, Neumeier slipped onto the huge set at night to help the crew, and there pictured a robot policeman in a future city.
Q 15What 1988 event cost Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, the pair behind RoboCop's script, their jobs on the sequel?
A writers' strike
A writers' strike. The pair had begun the sequel, but when the Writers Guild walked out for five months they would not keep writing, and the studio fired them.
Q 16Which 1960 film gave RoboCop writer Edward Neumeier the idea for what happens to his hero Murphy?
Psycho
Psycho. Hitchcock kills off his leading lady in the first act, and Neumeier borrowed the shock: Murphy is gunned down before RoboCop ever appears.
Q 17Which studio released RoboCop in 1987?
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures. The studio later went bankrupt, which left RoboCop 3 sitting on the shelf until 1993, and the series ended up with MGM.
Q 18Who persuaded Paul Verhoeven to direct RoboCop after he had tossed the script aside?
His wife
His wife. Martine Verhoeven read the script while he went for a swim, then told him he had missed its soul: a man who loses his identity and finds it again.
Q 19Which comic-book character did Edward Neumeier use to show Paul Verhoeven the tone he wanted for RoboCop?
Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd. Verhoeven wanted to play the story straight, so Neumeier sent him home with a stack of British comics whose deadpan humour was the model.
Q 20Which star did RoboCop's studio favour for the title role before deciding he was too bulky for the suit?
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger. He had already given the studio a hit, but the filmmakers feared that inside the costume he would look like the Michelin Man.
Howard Stern. He told his listeners the film looked stupid and passed on the part, then saw the finished picture and praised it on air.
Q 24Which Texas city stood in for the futuristic metropolis during most of RoboCop's shoot?
Dallas
Dallas. Verhoeven picked it over Houston for its gleaming new towers, and for run-down streets nearby that the crew was free to blow up.
Q 25Fittingly for a firm that takes over the local police, RoboCop's OCP tower was played by what kind of real building?
A city hall
A city hall. The seat of a real local government played the company's headquarters, with matte paintings stretching the building into a skyscraper.
Q 26To cast RoboCop as "an American Jesus", what does Paul Verhoeven have him appear to do at the steel mill?
Walk on water
Walk on water. Verhoeven saw Murphy's murder as a crucifixion and RoboCop as his resurrection, so at the flooded mill the hero strides across the surface.
Q 27Who led the special-effects team and designed the RoboCop costume?
Rob Bottin
Rob Bottin. The producer could afford a great costume or a futuristic city, not both, so the money went on Bottin's suit and the film was shot against a real skyline.
Q 28Who did Paul Verhoeven later blame for RoboCop's costume arriving two weeks into filming?
Himself
Himself. After reading too many Japanese comics he kept demanding changes to a finished design, and he later admitted that every one of his ideas had been wrong.
Q 29Peter Weller created RoboCop's way of moving with Moni Yakim, his coach in which performing art?
Mime
Mime. Their first fluid, snake-like walk proved impossible in the heavy suit, so the pair spent two days on set inventing the slow, staccato movement seen in the film.
Q 30RoboCop's Auto-9 pistol was built from a real machine pistol made by which gunmaker?
Beretta
Beretta. The Auto-9 is a 93R machine pistol, fitted with a longer barrel and a huge vented muzzle so that each three-shot burst spits flame in several directions.