Get ready to get confused, because Deadline says Sony, which announced a Helldivers 2 movie in January, is also making a new Starship Troopers movie set to be directed by Neil Blomkamp. But the new movie, according to the report, won’t be based on the 1997 film that Helldivers 2 draws heavily from, but will instead go back to the 1959 sci-fi novel written by Robert Heinlein.
Starship Troopers—the novel and the film—tells the tale of Johnny Rico, a soldier in a militaristic future human society at war with giant bugs from outer space. But where the movie—the 1997 Paul Verhoeven one, not the upcoming Blomkamp take—was a pretty heavy-handed satire of fascism (although that went largely unnoticed at the time), the book itself is regarded by some as, well, pretty fascist.
It’s a matter of ongoing debate, but there are clearly strong feelings about it: In a 1977 essay entitled Starship Stormtroopers, for instance, sci-fi writer Michael Moorcock wrote, “If I were sitting in a tube train and all the people opposite me were reading Mein Kampf with obvious enjoyment and approval it probably wouldn’t disturb me much more than if they were reading Heinlein.” Make of that what you will.
Helldivers 2 is, somehow, even less subtle in its satire than the Verhoeven film—humanity and “managed democracy” are glorified, but everything obviously sucks—and that will presumably carry over into the film. A Starship Troopers film played straight would be an entirely different creature: Humanity and “service” will be glorified but it’ll be good and everyone will be happy, despite widespread disenfranchisement and endless war.
Blomkamp is kind of a wild card in all of this too. His breakthrough film District 9 doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing that would be directed by a guy with authoritarian leanings, but that was more than 15 years ago and I don’t really know where he’s at these days. More recently, he made a Gran Turismo movie, for some reason.
In any event, there are no further details at this point, so it’s possible Blomkamp will serve up his own subversive take on Heinlein’s source material. But I do have to wonder why Sony would want a new Starship Troopers film and a Helldivers 2 film at essentially the same time—because, unless the plan is to play it completely straight and Blomkamp goes all-in on the OG, they’re going to be pretty much the same film.
One other note of interest: While Starship Troopers (1997 Verhoeven, not 20-whenever Blomkamp) star Casper van Dien was not mentioned in the announcement, it seems clear he’s aware of it—he posted this on X earlier today:
Make of that what you will, too.
