Starship Troopers Reboot Signs Neill Blomkamp to Direct – Did You Hear? week of Friday, March 14th, 2025

Did You Hear? is a weekly examination of headlines in the entertainment industry and a take on what they could mean for the future of the industry and (often), the little geeky bubble that we occupy!

Starship Troopers Reboot Now Helmed by Neill Blomkamp

Today The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that noted-book-turned-cult-classic Starship Troopers is back in the public eye. Two years shy of the 30th anniversary it appears the arachnids are rearing their ugly heads again under the auspices of District 9’s Neill Blomkamp.

Sony is behind the new adaptation, which is not a remake of Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 film, but rather will go back to the 1959 novel as source material.

This is the part of the feature where I encourage you to check out Robert A. Heinlein’s original work. While Starship Troopers (1997), is a worthy adaptation of the source material, while in true Paul Verhoeven fashion, cutting his own trail. There are a lot of cool details and differences which could serve as sources for another movie script. I’ll add that if you have a Heinlein sized gap in your American literature reading this is the perfect time to make amends.

At first blush, I think this is a great choice! Blomkamp is an intricate science fiction storyteller who is particularly skilled at coming right up to the line of audience comfort and tipping the results over the edge. Then I do then think of all the other reboots and franchises he has previously been attached to which never came to pass: Alien 5, Robocop Returns, Halo, Dune, District 10 … and that makes me sad.

Remember in a post-Firefly and post-Serenity landscape when Summer Glau was considered a “pilot killer”? Unfortunately, I think Blomkamp falls into the directors’ side of this equation.

This Starship Troopers project is explicitly NOT a reboot, but a sequel. Per THR:

Blomkamp’s take is not a remake of the Verhoeven movie, and sources say the goal is to go back to the source material.

In this nostalgia-bait entertainment landscape the bit of official information above is what intrigues me the most as it leaves room for cameos. Contemporary studios and studio executives believe cameos put butts in seats, drive ticket sales, and cement the legacy of a property. You can see examples of this from Star Wars (the original three leads and pretty much everyone else who is still alive has cameoed), DCTV and DC Films (John Wesley Shipp, Brandon Routh putting the Superman suit back on, Michael Keaton), Marvel (another Harrison Ford rehash in the recent Captain America installation), and into even smaller series and productions. This new Starship Troopers being a continuation leaves room for: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Seth Gilliam, Patrick Muldoon, Michael Ironside, and even Paul Verhoeven could all crop up!

(I don’t want any comments about characters who died on the OG Starship Troopers. As Spoilerites – and as comic book readers – you know that doesn’t matter!)

Making a sequel to a Paul Verhoeven film is always particularly thought-provoking for me. Your mileage may vary with each of the Robocop sequels (and the comic book series – if you’re not familiar with it, it’s at least worth a Google!), but Verhoeven projects are backed in nostalgia for the past while critiquing the future. As viewers of those original films we are now living in the deconstructed, post-something future Verhoeven was examining and imagining in the 80s. Is a film project nostalgic for the days-of-future-past Verhoeven was throwing down inherently reductive? Is it possible to take up his standard and create something as important and as biting?

Are we in a place as a society – and as a movie going audience – where we want that? This chases into the argument of what an Alien movie is?

There are no further details from THR – notably (and smartly!), any and all mention of a release date is MIA – which leads me to wonder if this project may be further under way than a director announcement would leave us with at first blush. As I mentioned toward to beginning of this article, 2025 is the 28th anniversary of Starship Troopers. 2027 will be the 30th anniversary of Starship Troopers. Wouldn’t it be neat to see a long-awaited legacy continuation in a year that’s a nice, round number?

This is purely conjecture on my part, but isn’t it fun conjecture? Screening parties and the pop culture convention circuit will go wild in two years if Sony manages to pull something like this off.

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