Daily Detroit News Byte

Detroit has a RoboCop statue. I watched it go in myself on Wednesday. It's a real thing. An amazingly detailed, 10-foot tall, 2.5 ton bronze behemoth will be greeting future generations coming to Eastern Market.  For more of the story, I sat down with three of the key people who refused to let this long-running project die: Filmmaker and original organizer Brandon Walley Producer and Free Age co-owner Jim Toscano  Omni Consumer Products' "defictionalizer-in-chief" Pete Hottelet Together, we unpack how a jokey tweet comparing Detroit to Philadelphia's Rocky statue turned into a nearly decade and a half odyssey that pulled in Hollywood effects legends, local foundry artisans, a major studio, and countless twists and turns. Brandon explains how the idea leapt from a viral Facebook page into a real public art commission through the old Imagination Station, and why the team was adamant that the statue be made in Detroit.  He walks through the early missteps, the learning curve on how you actually build a 10-foot