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The 30th anniversary of director Paul Verhoeven‘s Starship Troopers will arrive in 2027, but now there’s a chance that a new take on the franchise could arrive that year or soon after. Neill Blomkamp, the Oscar-nominated co-writer and director of District 9, has signed on to tackle a Starship Troopers reboot movie.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blomkamp will write and direct the new Starship Troopers for Sony’s Columbia Pictures. Blomkamp’s wife — and the co-writer of District 9 and Chappie — Terri Tatchell will also produce the film with her husband. However, the new Starship Troopers will not be following in the footsteps of Verhoeven’s satirical take on the story. Instead, Blomkamp reportedly plans to bring the film more in line with the original 1959 Hugo Award-winning novel by Robert A. Heinlein.
The Starship Troopers novel had a huge influence on the sci-fi genre with its depiction of an intergalactic war between humanity and massive alien bugs from space. Aspects of Heinlein’s story have also been described as fascist, in part because of the overly militaristic perspective and other plot elements that include people having to serve the government or join the military in order to gain full rights as a citizen.
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If Blomkamp is planning to ditch the signature satire used in Verhoeven’s film, it will be surprising since his best movie, District 9, had satirical elements of its own. Blomkamp has made three sci-fi movies to date, including Chappie and Elysium, but several of his projects haven’t come to fruition. Blomkamp developed legacy sequels for both Alien and RoboCop, neither of which moved forward. Blomkamp’s most recent film was Gran Turismo, which was loosely based on a true story about Jann Mardenborough, who trained to become a professional racer after learning his craft by playing the Gran Turismo game.
Despite earning only $121 million worldwide against a budget that was reportedly $101-110 million, Starship Troopers became a cult favorite after its 1997 release. Several direct-to-video sequels have been made, and it has even extended into the realm of video games with Starship Troopers: Extermination. Casper Van Dien reprised his leading role as Johnny Rico for two of the follow-up films, and in Extermination.
Sony hasn’t set a date for the new Starship Troopers film yet.
