Timecop (franchise)

Timecop franchise
Cover of Timecop comic book that originated the franchise.
Created by	Mike Richardson Mark Verheiden
Original work	"Time Cop: A Man Out of Time" (comic book)
Owners	Dark Horse Comics Films and TV series: Universal Pictures NBCUniversal
Print publications
Novel(s)	The Scavenger (1998) Viper’s Spawn (1998) Blood Ties (1999)
Comics	Timecop
Films and television
Film(s)	Timecop (1994) Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision (2003) Timecop (TBA)
Television series	Timecop
Games
Traditional	Timecop (SNES)

Timecop is an American science fiction franchise about a police force that regulates time travel, set in the near future. It started as a three-part story titled "Time Cop: A Man Out of Time", in a 1992 Dark Horse anthology comic, which inspired the 1993 TV series Time Trax^{[citation needed]} and 1994 film Timecop starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The film was a box office success, and inspired a video game for SNES, a single-season ABC TV series, three novels, and a sequel in 2003.

The film adaptation of "Time Cop: A Man in Time" was directed by Peter Hyams and produced by Sam Raimi and Moshe Diamant. Jean-Claude Van Damme played police officer Max Walker, who is recruited by the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) in 1994 to bring a rogue politician, Senator Aaron McComb (Ron Silver), to justice. Through his investigation, Walker discovers that the senator is also responsible for numerous other previously unconnected crimes, including the earlier death of his wife, played by Mia Sara.

Timecop 2 was directed by Steve Boyum and written by Gary Scott Thompson. Van Damme did not return—the lead role was instead fulfilled by Jason Scott Lee. Lee plays TEC agent Ryan Chung, who has to stop Brandon Miller, the head of an agency supervising TEC, who intends to change history by assassinating Adolf Hitler in 1940. The film was released in 2003 directly to home video.

In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Universal Studios was developing a reboot of Timecop due to the success of the 2012 time travelling film Looper. Richardson was to be the executive producer.^[1] Universal was reportedly throwing into development a remake of Timecop, the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme time travel action movie.

Marc Shmuger would produce the film via his Universal-based Global Produce banner alongside Tom McNulty.

It is still unclear whether the reboot is still in development

Following the film's success, American Broadcasting Company ordered a series based on Timecop. They agreed to produce 13 episodes on a $15 million budget. Universal Television produced the resulting series, using the same title as the film. Mark Verheiden wrote the screenplay for the pilot.^[2]

The show was first aired in 1997.^[2] None of the cast or characters from the film reprised their roles in the series. Ted King starred in a breakout role as TEC agent Jack Logan (a character later used in the novels) who hunts down rogue travelers and brings them to justice before they can alter the past. Due to low ratings and poor advertising, the series was cut short after less than a season, and only nine out of the thirteen episodes were aired.^[3]

Mike Richardson, the founder of Dark Horse Comics, wrote a three-issue story titled "Time Cop: A Man Out of Time". The story was included in issues No. 1–3 of the Dark Horse Comics anthology series in 1992.^[4][5] Richardson developed the story, while the comic was written by Mark Verheiden and drawn by Ron Randall. The plot of the comic differs from film's plot, but Max Walker is the protagonist of both works.

Richardson and Verheiden went on to write the screenplay for the film.^[4] They also published a two-issue comic book adaptation of the film in September 1994, coinciding with the film's release.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2017)

Dan Parkinson wrote an adventure trilogy based on the Timecop series, covering Jack Logan's further hunts for rogue time travellers who try to alter the past.^[6] Published by Del Rey Books, the trilogy consisted of The Scavenger (August 1998), Viper's Spawn (September 1998) and Blood Ties (March 1999).

A side-scrolling action game based on the Timecop film was produced by Cryo Interactive for Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. The game is notable for being one of the first to use digitized images of the film's cast to portray game characters—live actors had been filmed in front of a bluescreen. The player has to stop Dr. Hans Kleindast, the inventor of time travel, following him through various time periods throughout the game's 15 levels.^[7]

Although the game was only released for the Super NES, a version was also developed for the Sega CD, with a short demo being distributed with the May 1995 issue of the European Sega Pro magazine.^[8] Despite being fully completed by the developer, JVC Musical Industries choose not to publish the Sega CD version. In 2007, a complete version of the game was eventually released on the Internet by the Sega CD version coder.^{[9][unreliable source?]}