According to Johan Pilestedt, the creative director at Arrowhead Game Studios, the team behind the Helldivers game won’t be playing a major part in the creation of the forthcoming Helldivers movie. When a fan queried on X if Arrowhead would be involved in the film’s production, Pilestedt responded, “The short answer is yes. The long answer is that we’ll see. We are not Hollywood people, and we don’t know what it takes to make a movie. And therefore we don’t, and shouldn’t, have final say.”
The film, still in its early developmental stages, was recently discussed at CES in an announcement by Sony. From what Pilestedt shared, it looks like no one from Arrowhead will be taking the lead on this project. There’s always a chance things might shift as the project moves along, but it’s not shaping up to be a situation similar to The Last of Us TV series, where game developers were closely involved in its creation.
With no confirmed names attached to the Helldivers movie, it’s still a mystery how the film will capture the game’s intense thrill of battling space bugs and robots. The game is about space marines fighting for a satirical fascist empire and was heavily inspired by the 1997 film Starship Troopers, a movie that Sony happens to own. It will be interesting to see how much of that inspiration makes it to the adaptation.
Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions are joining forces on the Helldivers movie, but much is still undecided. Since PlayStation Productions launched in 2019, they’ve been busy bringing some of Sony’s top game franchises to the screen, including Gran Turismo, Twisted Metal, and The Last of Us. The Helldivers movie is just one of seven projects in the works, most of which don’t have a set release date yet. Sony has also announced film adaptations for Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, and Gravity Rush.
