Info On Cut RoboCop 2 Fight Scene Unearthed

It was always going to be nigh on impossible for someone to follow up RoboCop with something equally as good.  But man, RoboCop 2 was a fine sequel, despite the negative ratings on some popular metric sites.  Did you know that it has never had a special edition?  Of course you did.  With Irvin Kirshner shunning the movie, and being dead, as well as Nancy Allen refusing to speak of it and with Peter Weller being… well, Peter Weller, info on this gem of a movie is hard to come by.

So leave it to the admin of RoboCopArchive to once again pull out some nice info (he previously found the workprint for the movie, with new scenes).  Now we have some info on the ‘Elvis Guy’ and where he disappeared to.  Dead, from a knife fight with Officer Lewis.

Below are words from ‘Catzo’ himself, to Michael Medeiros RoboCopArchive, with the new picture above.  Very interesting, once in a decade kind of find.

RoboCop2 was a script that went into production before it was ready – at least if director, Irvin Kershner’s behavior was any indication. Many mornings I’d arrive on set to see Kersh reading new pages from screenwriter Frank Miller. One by one, he’d toss the pages over his shoulder with a one word review, “shit.” Toss. “Shit. Toss. “Shit… And then the capper, “this is going to be the worst picture I ever made, as he lurched out of his director’s chair and headed over toward the camera department. Frank looked morose but said nothing. Though successful in comics, it was his first screenwriting job. Hey – Kershner was very big in Hollywood at that time and could afford to make waves any way he wanted to. I’m sure it helped to let the tension off a little.

But Kersh seemed to like me. I was playing Catzo, a member of Cain’s gang and sported an outrageous bouffant hairdo and shiny suits. Occasionally he gave me fatherly type advise – “No matter what you do,” he leaned in quite seriously, “Always make it real. Gotta be real.” I refrained from telling him I’d studied with Uta Hagen, one of the greats. Anyway, he liked me. And so, it seems did Frank Miller and Whalon Green the producer. I was evidently making a good impression in the dailies. One day Frank Miller sidled up to me – he was a rather gangly man – and said, I think they’re going to have me write some new scenes for you.

Now I was already having a good time. It was my first large budget film. I was making some jing. My old pal Peter Weller was playing guess who? And the thought of hanging out at the Hyatt in Houston for a couple more weeks was very pleasant. I was eating and drinking well. A Houston party girl was showing us a lot of the right spots and what to get there. Her Daddy was in racehorses and she was a bit of a mess. But I digress.

The new pages show up a few days later and they’re pretty good. Sort of pretty good. There was a new scene in a warehouse – after the other big warehouse scene where the gang is attacked and the drug truck blows up. Hmn, have I got that right? I think so – anyway after the scene where (in the final cut) Catzo simply disappears from the movie.

I don’t remember all that much about the new warehouse scene except that I was supposed to come down a long flight of stairs and grab a bottle of wine off the table and swig it down while bitterly complaining about what was happening to the gang. And then somehow – I don’t remember how – I got into a knife fight with Nancy Allen. Great stuntman George Chong helped design the moves and we worked on it for a week or so. We shot it and I thought it went well. Gave her character stature to kill me. Somehow in my naivete I assumed it would be in the movie. In retrospect and having now directed two films of my own I well know why it hit the cutting room floor.

And that is, or would have been the fate of Catzo.

All Best,
Michael