( CNN ) -- The script for Robocop , a futuristic tale of decline , had a note scribbled on the top of the first page . It read : `` The future left Detroit behind . '' As screenwriter Ed Neumeirer recalls , it was a prescient message . That statement has never been more relevant to the American city , after it filed the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history earlier this month with debts around $ 18 billion . Neumeier says that RoboCop was , and still is , a metaphor `` to show the industrial decline in America . '' He told CNN : `` The reason Detroit is important is because it 's facing an economic blight that you can imagine happening in a lot of places . '' Set in a futuristic Detroit plagued by financial ruin and economic decay , `` RoboCop '' -- made in 1987 -- relates how a no-nonsense cyborg law enforcer ends up policing the city 's crime-ridden streets . Written by Neumeier , directed by Paul Verhoeven and mostly filmed in Pittsburgh and Dallas , the film paints Detroit as a once-great metropolis and manufacturing hub laid to waste by outsourcing and mass unemployment . Read more : Detroit 's bankruptcy could spell good-bye for Howdy Doody . Neumeier told CNN he battled with producers to ensure Detroit remained the setting for the film , adding the fictional dystopia in `` RoboCop '' could easily become a reality when a city is stripped of the industry that ties its communities together . `` In retrospect , the idea of `` RoboCop '' really goes back to the car industry '' he told CNN . `` The sculpture of it is very much Detroit road-iron ... having grown up in the sixties when the muscle car was so prominent , the notion of cars was very important to me then and ultimately to the formation of RoboCop . '' Read more : Why Obama wo n't bailout Detroit . The cradle of auto manufacturing in the 1950s and home to the likes of Ford and General Motors , Detroit was once considered the engine of the U.S. economy . But production saw a sharp decline in the 1980s when Japan emerged as a global financial heavyweight and automakers like Nissan began to provide stern competition . Decades of stagnation culminated in an $ 80 billion U.S. government bailout for the automotive industry between 2008-2010 . Watch more : The Motor City sputters to a stop . Today , Detroit is a shadow of the economic boomtown it once was . With a population of just over 700,000 , the so-called `` Motor City '' is suffering from a 16 % unemployment rate , as automotive jobs have all but disappeared and the mortgage crisis of 2007 hit homeowners hard . Crime also poses a major social threat to Detroit . In 2012 , Forbes named it the most dangerous U.S. city and the most miserable for 2013 . A debt restructuring deal to solve Detroit 's economic woes is likely to mean extreme cuts to public services with retirees receiving just a fraction of their pensions , if plans proposed by emergency manager Kevin Orr go ahead . At a press conference on Friday , in which he discussed the city 's economic demise , Orr said : `` Does anybody think it 's OK to have 40-year-old trees growing through the roofs of dilapidated houses ? '' Corporate America . In the film , fictional Detroit is propped up by a multinational corporation , called Omni Consumer Products ( OCP ) , which runs everything from the hospitals to the police force . It also has grand designs to demolish `` Old Detroit '' and create an ultra-modern utopia called `` Delta City . '' The vulgar and callous corporate age that serves as the backdrop to `` RoboCop '' is upon us , according to Neumeier . `` We are increasingly asking corporations to do these things for us ... to provide human services . But their objectives are different to public service needs . '' Despite Neumeier 's efforts to remain , as he puts it , `` neutral '' to big business in `` RoboCop , '' the antihero is a senior executive at OCP , who conspires with gangsters to run Detroit . `` We are now living in the world that I was proposing in RoboCop , '' said Neumeier , adding that it showed `` how big corporations will take care of us and..how they wo n't . '' Read more : Detroit : After bankruptcy , then what ? Neumeier believes Detroit now has the opportunity to rebuild and perhaps rebrand itself as the aspirational `` Delta City '' portrayed at the start of his film . The one-time gem of the U.S Rust Belt must overcome the expectations of the past , he says , and clean up the ruined parts of the city . He remains optimistic for the future of Detroit . `` There is a cheap and educated labor force . Some kind of high-tech would be good for them ... I would say with the industrial and mechanical legacy there , somebody should start a robotics company . '' Neumeier quotes Dick Jones , one of RoboCop 's corporate villains , to sum up the city 's industrial past and potential for a tech-based future : `` Good business is where you find it . '' A remake of the cult hit , directed by Jose Padilha and starring Hollywood big-hitters Samuel L. Jackson and Gary Oldman , is set to be released in 2014 . Opinion : How Detroit can rise again .
Released in 1987 , RoboCop is set in a futuristic Detroit plagued by financial ruin and economic decay . In 2012 , Forbes named it the most dangerous U.S. city , and crowned it most miserable in 2013 . The U.S. government provided a $ 80 billion bailout for the automotive industry between 2008-2010 .