The tech-focused CES 2025 threw up a few surprise movie and TV show announcements from Sony, including confirmation that an official Helldivers 2 film is in the works.
The Helldivers 2 movie is a collaboration between Sony Productions and Sony Pictures. No other details were offered, but speaking on-stage at CES, Asad Qizilbash, head of PlayStation Productions, said: “Looking ahead as to what might come next, I’m excited to announce we are working with Sony Pictures on developing a film adaptation of our amazingly popular PlayStation game Helldivers 2.”
Helldivers 2, from developer Arrowhead, is of course heavily inspired by cult classic sci-fi satire Starship Troopers. It sees soldiers of the future struggle to defend a fascist Super Earth regime against alien robots called Automatons and bugs called Terminids all the while preaching “Managed Democracy.”
Fans have a lot of questions about the Helldivers 2 movie, questions neither Sony nor Arrowhead is ready to answer. But Arrowhead CCO Johan Pilestedt did respond to one X/Twitter user who asked if the developer will be involved with the film’s production to ensure it stays faithful to the games.
Pilestedt acknowledged he’d been dodging the question, but did confirm Arrowhead should have some input. However, it sounds like the team won’t have creative control over the Helldivers 2 movie, which, based on Pilestedt’s comments, is the right approach.
“I’ve been dodging this question,” Pilestedt said. “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.”
Helldivers seems an odd pick for a movie given Starship Troopers is right there, so it will be interesting to see how Sony treats the adaptation and who it brings in to handle it. It does feel like the film is at its earliest stages though, so we perhaps won’t know anything more for some time.
Helldivers 2 is the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time with an incredible 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks. It’s currently enjoying a resurgence after the release of the long-awaited Illuminate update, which adds a third faction for players to fight against.
Also announced at Sony’s CES 2025 press conference were a movie adaptation of Guerrilla’s Horizon Zero Dawn, and an anime adaptation of Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima. Sony is all in on adaptations of its video games, with Season 2 of hit HBO show The Last of Us due out in April.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
