Before we begin, here are your marching orders for this Friday — if you’ve never seen RoboCop, do yourself a favor and go watch RoboCop. A true staple of ’80s sci-fi, if not for your own enjoyment, please do it for us. You won’t regret it.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, on to business…
RoboCop is all about, well, a robotic cop. It’s a franchise that took the world by storm, and propelled Dr. Peter Weller into international fame. Since then, Weller has spent much of his time behind the camera — that is, until now. In a recent interview with CombicBook.com, the Hollywood icon sat down to discuss his newly announced involvement in Marvel’s latest project, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
“I just finished a thing called Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Laurence Fishburne, a long-time pal, called me up and said, ‘Hey, would you play this? It’s a voice-acting gig. Would you do this role of Dr. Stern? It was written for you.'”
An actual PhD in Italian Renaissance art history, Peter Weller will be playing Dr. Stern for the new series. Stern, a doctor of cell biology, seems to be the story’s requisite disgruntled old dude. Following the adventures of a child genius and her T-rex companion — you know, that classic story — Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is an animated adventure unlike anything Marvel has ever done. That is to say, Weller certainly had his concerns.
“‘I said, ‘Laurence, I’ve heard this rap before, that somebody is calling you up and saying it was written for you. I did that with Dexter, and it turned out he didn’t write it for me. Then Howard Gordon did it with 24,’ I read this voice acting thing for Moon Girl, and you know it’s a Marvel/Disney thing.”
After doing a few episodes though of the highly-anticipated series, it seems he began to enjoy himself. Frankly though, has there ever been an actor who’s come right out and said they hated working with Marvel?
“I love being the pompous, arrogant, essentially idiot in front of these kids.”
The guy’s a legit Ph.D in real life, how hard could it be to play an animated one? Peter Weller joins a stacked cast of entertainment icons, alongside the likes of: Laurence Fishburne, Craig Robinson, Gary Anthony Williams, Alison Brie, Josh Keaton, Cobie Smulders, May Calamawy, Jennifer Hudson, Daveed Diggs, Andy Cohen, and more.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is currently airing on Disney Plus, and with new episodes every Saturday, there’s no telling where our heroes will be swept off to.