A Starship Troopers reboot is in the works from Neill Blomkamp and Sony Pictures, with Blomkamp writing and directing who is known for Gran Turismo, Chappie, Elysium, and District 9.
What is the Starship Troopers reboot about?
No plot details are known, but Deadline says the new Starship Troopers movie will be closer to the source material of the original novel by Robert A. Heinlein than the 1997 Paul Verhoeven movie.
The Starship Troopers movie spawned two sequels, released in 2004 and 2008, and two CGI animated films, released in 2012 and 2017.
What are the differences between the Starship Troopers novel and movie?
The Starship Troopers novel is different than the movie in terms of themes and tone, the depiction of the military and government, the technology and warfare, the characters and development, and the message and intention.
In the novel, Juan “Johnny” Rico is a Filipino cadet while in the movie Johnny Rico is reimagined as a white Argentine jock, played by Casper Van Dien.
The book also sees the Mobile Infantry wear exoskeleton suits equipped with jump jets, nukes, and advanced weaponry, while in the movie the soldiers are basically infantry with machine guns.
Regarding the message, in the film, Paul Verhoeven’s Federation resembles Nazi Germany, while in Robert A. Heinlein’s book, The Terran Federation is not fascist but works on a volunteer-based system where those who serve can only earn military earn citizenship.
The movie also portrays the military as incompetent, while the book portrays the military as more of a noble path. The movie also is more of a satire, while the book is seen as serious.
Military vs bugs could be the next Hollywood thing
Interestingly enough, a Helldivers movie is in the works, also from Sony, which is based on the Helldivers 2 video game, which shares the same themes and is inspired by Starship Troopers.
Marvel was also developing a Nova series which was said to have adapted the Annihilation event from the comics, which pits the Nova Corps versus bugs from the Negative Zone.
Typically, what happens in Hollywood is when word of one particular theme of a movie starts to get traction, everybody plays follow the leader. It seems as if the next wave of sci-fi films could be military sci-fi flicks that take on bugs (robots would be cool, too).
Henry Cavill is also developing a Warhammer cinematic universe at Amazon Studios. Warhammer 40k takes place in a grim, distant future where a decaying human empire battles relentless alien threats and dark supernatural forces. The main bug-like aliens are called Tyranids. The Space Marines 3 video game is also in development.
