Sony is working on a new Starship Troopers movie reboot, according to various Hollywood sources.
The Hollywood Reporter said District 9, Elysium, and Chappie director Neill Blomkamp has signed on to write and direct a new adaptation of Starship Troopers, the 1959 military sci-fi novel by Robert A. Heinlein. Deadline and Variety backed up the report.
This new Starship Troopers movie is not a continuation of or related to Paul Verhoeven’s cult classic 1997 sci-fi satire Starship Troopers. Rather it is a new adaptation of Heinlein’s novel, and comes from Sony’s Columbia Pictures.
News of Blomkamp’s involvement with this new Starship Troopers movie feels puzzling given Sony itself recently announced a live-action movie of blockbuster PlayStation Studios shooter Helldivers. Arrowhead’s Helldivers is heavily inspired by Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, and sees cannon fodder soldiers tasked with defending a satirized fascist Super Earth regime from alien bugs, among other enemy factions, while preaching Liberty and Managed Democracy to the masses.
Sony now faces the prospect of having new Starship Troopers and Helldivers movies going up against each other, although The Hollywood Reporter said Blomkamp’s take is not a remake of the Verhoeven movie, rather a return to the source material. Heinlein’s book that Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is based on differs strongly in tone from the film, with many believing it promotes the ideals the film satirizes.
Neither this new Starship Troopers nor the Helldivers movie has a release window, so it may be some time before we see or hear from either project. Blomkamp’s last film was Sony’s own Gran Turismo, an adaptation of the long-running PlayStation-exclusive driving simulation series.
Photo by TriStar Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
