Columbia Pictures is taking on a sci-fi hit, one of the legendary franchises that were not successful upon release. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio is actively working on reviving Starship Trooper, but not by drawing inspiration from Paul Verhoeven's film. This will involve returning to the origins of the brand, having multiplied projects since 1997 without ever crossing the threshold of a movie theater. After animated films, a series produced by Verhoeven himself, and TV movies, Columbia wants to take over the universe and reinvent it from the ground up. The company is working on an adaptation of the novel called Stars at Attention! Columbia Pictures wants to break free from the visual codes of the director of Total Recall and Robocop. A reboot of sorts, as science fiction continues to be at the heart of the film industry's concerns.
And to carry out such a project, the studio is banking on a director who has a certain mastery of the subject. The project was entrusted to Neill Blomkamp. The director had won over critics and audiences in 2009 with his District 9. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay and a Bafta for Best Director. Since then, he has devoted himself to more broadly to stories of anticipation, such as with Chappie in 2015 or Elysium in 2013.
For Starship Trooper, he will have to tell the story of a young soldier recently enlisted in the mobile infantry. This adaptation thus promises to follow the career of the young soldier Rico, recently enlisted in the infantry. As an interstellar war breaks out, pitting humanity against an insectoid species known as the Arachnid, Rico climbs the ranks to establish himself as an officer. If the work caused a debate upon its release - it is accused of being an ode to imperialism, or even fascism - it is a monument of imaginary literature that Neill Blomkamp will have the opportunity to revisit.
An embryonic stage
For now, the project seems to be in preliminary development. No release date has been announced. We also do not know who will play Rico and his cronies. It is up to Casper Van Dien that the mission was entrusted to him in the late 90s. Dina Meyer, Denise Richard, Jake Busey, Patrick Muldoon and Neil Patrick Harris were among the actors and actresses invited to take part in this adventure.
To find out who will replace them, we will probably have to wait a little longer. Starship Trooper should nevertheless be the next project of the director who had not been seen behind the camera since the adaptation of the game Gran Turismo in 2023.
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