“RoboCop” (1987) is set in Detroit, but most of it was actually filmed in and around Dallas, Texas, with key additional scenes shot at steel mills in Pennsylvania and California. A few establishing elements come from Detroit itself, mainly in the form of stock or brief location footage.

Main filming cities

  • Dallas, Texas – Primary shooting location, standing in for futuristic “Old Detroit,” including many downtown exteriors and corporate buildings.
  • Pennsylvania (Duquesne/Pittsburgh/Monessen area) – Used for the grim industrial steel mill environments in the later parts of the film.
  • Southern California (Fontana) – A Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana was also used for steel mill scenes.
  • Detroit, Michigan – Appears briefly through limited location or stock footage to ground the story in the real Motor City.

Notable Dallas locations

  • Dallas City Hall (1500 Marilla St) – Used as the exterior of the towering OCP headquarters, extended on screen with optical effects.
  • Plaza of the Americas & downtown streets – Provide much of the sleek corporate “future Detroit” cityscape.
  • Hotel Crescent Court garage – Used for OCP’s parking structure, including the scene where RoboCop is pinned down by police gunfire.

Steel mill and industrial sites

  • Duquesne Steel Works, near Pittsburgh – The abandoned steel mill where Murphy/RoboCop hides out and faces Boddicker’s gang was filmed at this now-demolished plant.
  • Kaiser Steel Mill, Fontana, California – Credited as a major steel mill filming location for some of the industrial sequences.

Fun “where was RoboCop filmed” trivia

  • Many fans are surprised to learn that what looks like grimy Detroit is actually mostly sleek 1980s Dallas architecture dressed down with clever production design.
  • Forum and Reddit discussions about “where was RoboCop filmed” regularly feature locals from Detroit and Dallas chiming in with on-the-ground memories of spotting the shoot or recognizing their city on screen.

TL;DR: When people ask “where was RoboCop filmed,” the accurate short answer is: mostly Dallas, Texas, with important steel mill scenes in Pennsylvania and California, plus a small amount of real Detroit footage for authenticity.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.