Paul Verhoeven returns to the US to shoot his political and erotic thriller, Young Sinner this year

The Dutch filmmaker reunites for the occasion with the screenwriter of RoboCop and Starship Troopers, Edward Neumeier. And returns to the United States, 24 years after the release of Hollow Man.

At the end of 2021, we learned that Paul Verhoeven had just found Edward Neumeier for writing “a sulphurous political thriller” titled Young Sinner and presented as “an innovative take on films like Fatal affair And Basic Instinct. Without digital special effects. A film as intimate as possible.”

The screenwriter of RoboCop And Starship Troopers was tasked with bringing to paper the story of a young woman hired by a powerful senator to work alongside him in Washington. “Of course there will also be a little sex, immediately stated the director of ShowGirls, She And Benedetta to the media MovieMaker when announcing the project. We consulted a former intelligence officer, Ron Marks, who tries to keep us in the loop on how things are going on Capitol Hill and the spy business… But satire always seems to emerge when Paul and I work together, so I suppose our new adventure will have a light tone…”

Now he says more about it Metrograph, revealing in particular that the script is about to be completed and that he should be able to shoot it this year. In fact, the plan was even to film Young Sinner from fall 2023, but with the writers’ and actors’ strike, the project fell behind schedule. This will be the 85-year-old director’s first American shoot since Hollow Manreleased in 2000 in cinemas.

“I’m currently working with Ed Neumeier, who wrote RoboCop, he said. You could say it’s a political thriller, if you will, set in Washington. For the last few years I’ve been working in France, because I couldn’t find anything interesting here, and then Ed came along with this very tempting proposition. We’ve been working on this script for two years. It should be completed within two months, then we’ll look for someone to finance it.”

Paul Verhoeven adds in passing that Young Sinner will be close to Blackbookhis 2006 film directed by Carice Van Houten “but more explosive and more open to a wide audience.” He also specifies that the heroine, whom he has not yet cast, will be “a woman evangelist”.

Finally, about his reunion with the screenwriter of RoboCop and of Starship Troopershe explains : “If you observed us working, you would mainly see two friends having a laugh. We have fun with our own satire at the moment when we are imagining it. Not because we want to at all costs to make fun of, but because it arises from our conversations. It emerges all at once!”

Paul Verhoeven: “Benedetta does not respond to a trend or a political gesture such as #MeToo”