Earlier this month it was announced that Sony is developing a reboot of Starship Troopers, which is said to be much more in line with Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 novel, rather than Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 satirical big screen adaptation. Well, it seems that Verhoeven isn’t overly keen on that prospect, with the filmmaker revealing that he fears we could be in line for a very pro-militaristic take given the current political climate.
“It said in the article [that] the production team of that movie of the remake, that they would go back more and more towards the novel,” said Verhoeven (via IndieWire), who was speaking at a screening of the movie at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. “And of course, we really, really tried to get away from the novel, because we felt that the novel was fascistic and militaristic. You feel that going back to the novel would fit very much in a Trump Presidency.”
““Our philosophy was really different [from Heinlein’s book],we wanted to do a double story, a really wonderful adventure story about these young boys and girls fighting, but we also wanted to show that these people are really, in their heart, without knowing it, are on their way to fascism. We succeeded to do this movie, that is so subversive, and politically incorrect [because] Sony changed [leadership] every three, four months. Nobody looked at the rushes [dailies] because they had no time because they were fired every three, four months. So we got away with it because nobody saw it.”
The Starship Troopers remake is being written by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon (Baywatch), with Neal H. Moritz (Fast & Furious) and Toby Jaffe (Total Recall) producing. As yet, there’s no word on a director, nor a potential release date.
Originally published November 19, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
