‘Starship Troopers’ Reboot in the Works (Exclusive)

The bugs are coming back.

Columbia Pictures is rebooting Starship Troopers, the 1997 sci-fi film directed by Paul Verhoeven.

The studio has tapped Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, the writing duo behind the upcoming Baywatch movie, to pen the script for a new theatrical feature film that would relaunch a potential franchise.

Neal H. Moritz, the producer behind the Fast & Furious franchise, is producing with Toby Jaffe, with whom he worked on the studio’s remake of another 1990s sci-fi pic, Total Recall.

Starship Troopers is based on the sci-fi war novel by Robert A. Heinlein that told the military life of a soldier named Johnny Rico who moves up the ranks as mankind fights a war against alien bugs.

Verhoeven took some of the novel’s themes and ran with them, making a movie that satirically took on fascism and militarism and echoed propaganda films like Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. It starred Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards and Neil Patrick Harris.

Starship Troopers was a mixed success at the time of its release but did achieve a cult following. During the DVD boom of the 2000s, it became a mini-franchise for the studio, which produced three direct-to-DVD movies.

The studio is not remaking the film but is said to be going back to the original Heinlein novel for an all-new take. No personnel from the 1997 film are involved.

Matthew Milam is overseeing for the studio.

Shannon and Swift, who also wrote 2009’s remake of Friday the 13th, are repped by UTA and McKuin Frankel.

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