A new take on Starship Troopers is happening at Sony, with District 9 and Elysium filmmaker Neill Blomkamp set to direct.
According to a new report, Neill Blomkamp has set up a new Starship Troopers project at Sony. The director of District 9, one of the greatest science fiction films of the 2000s, is reportedly writing and directing the film, which will of course follow in the footsteps of Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 movie of the same name. However, according to the report over at Deadline, the film isn’t a remake of Verhoeven’s film and will instead hew closer to Robert A Heinlein’s original 1959 novel.
While Verhoeven’s sci-fi action film didn’t set the box office alight on its release, its blend of enjoyable cheesiness, nail-biting action and satirical take on neo-conservatism and the military industrial complex eventually found an audience on the growing home format market. There’s where it became a cult classic, spawning several straight-to-DVD sequels.
Blomkamp’s take on Starship Troopers is said to be more in line with Heinlein’s original novel, and there’s nothing overtly wrong with that: it’s a great read that follows the adventures of a young grunt as he moves up through the military taking on hordes of aliens using plenty of advanced weaponry.
It takes a pretty po-faced attitude towards the military, especially in comparison to Verhoeven’s satirical take, which was so subversive it even annoyed the film’s military advisor, Dale Dye, a decorated Marine Veteran of several major conflicts.
Given how parts of Hollywood seem to be scared of their own shadow in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, we wonder if this version of Starship Troopers might end up in a very different part of the ideological spectrum to its predecessor. That would definitely place it closer to Heinlein’s pro-military novel, although Blomkamp is still the filmmaker who used his post-District 9 'big swing’ to make Elysium, a pseudo ‘eat the rich’ film made well before the genre was in vogue.
Read more: Gran Turismo review | Neill Blomkamp’s raciest film yet
Besides, with Sony having also announced a Helldivers film based on its wildly popular videogame of the same name, the studio already has one fascism-prodding, bug-blasting sci-fi satire on its slate. Helldivers is directly influenced by Verhoeven’s film.
Assuming that this take on Starship Troopers hasn’t pushed that project into the shadow realm, Blomkamp’s take on the material would need to distinguish itself somehow, so sticking more closely to the novel makes sense in that regard.
That’s all we know for now, but with this project in the pipeline, we can’t help wondering if Blomkamp will ever make District 10. Everytime he seems to get close, Sony dangles a big IP project in front of him. Last time round it was Gran Turismo, this time it’s Starship Troopers.
Hopefully, a Starship Troopers film will give the filmmaker the creative latitude to make something closer to his punkier roots, and unlike his Alien and Robocop remakes that never saw the light of day, actually come to fruition this time.
