Last month, I wrote about a “Starship Troopers” remake being in the works over at Sony. No director was attached, but things have quickly changed.
Neill Blomkamp is set to write and direct “Starship Troopers.” THR specified that Blomkamp’s take is not a remake of the Paul Verhoeven movie, and sources say the goal is to go back to the source material, Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 sci-fi novel.
With “Starship Troopers” having grown into a popular IP, especially on the video game front, it’s no surprise that Sony wants to cash in on that. However, it’s a good sign that Blomkamp doesn’t intend to remake Verhoeven’s film.
The 1997 film tackles a futuristic military that works to protect the United Citizen Federation. A patriot, Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien), joins the Mobile Infantry to fight a war against giant alien bugs, undergoing brutal training and intense battles. As the war escalates, he rises through the ranks, embracing the ideology of duty, citizenship, and sacrifice.
These last 10 years, Blomkamp has had many of his passion projects fall apart, including ‘Alien 4, “District 10,” “RoboCop” and “Halo.” If you ask me, a real shame since Blomkamp is a talented filmmaker who could have done wonders on some of these IPs.
It’s been a tough road for Blomkamp ever since breaking out with 2009’s “District 9”; His follow-up was 2013’s “Elysium” (underrated!) which proved to be very divisive. His third film 2015’s “Chappie” (underrated!) was outright panned. Few saw his 2021 sci-fi indie “Demonic” (terrible!)
Blomkamp is coming off 2023’s “Gran Turismo” which turned out to be a decent hit for Sony, gathering up positive reviews, and raking in $122M at the box-office. This was the lifeline Blomkamp needed, especially after a string of commercial failures. More importantly, audiences loved “Gran Turismo” with its A CinemaScore, 90% PostTrak, 98% RT user rating and 7.1 IMDb score.
Sony has now rewarded Blomkamp with “Starship Troopers.” I can actually see him pulling this one off, he’s the right type of filmmaker for the source material, but he needs his take to distance itself, as far away as possible, from Verhoeven’s 1995 classic.