We first found out that Netflix optioned the rights to John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War over six years ago, back in December 2017. It’s not uncommon for things to get optioned but never get made (Old Man’s War, in fact, had been previously optioned by Paramount and Syfy without making it to the production stage), but it sounds like the Netflix movie adaptation is still moving forward.
Scalzi gave an update on the project over on Bluesky yesterday, where he said that work on it is “slowly but surely moving along.” That’s a pleasant surprise given it’s been several years since Netflix first signed on.
Netflix’s movie adaptation was set to adapt the first book in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series , which currently contains six novels. In the first book, we follow John Perry, a 75-year-old man who, after visiting his wife’s grave, joins the army and gets his brain uploaded into a young, buff bod able to regenerate limbs, among other things. The army, called the Colonial Defense Force, only takes on those aged 75 and older and takes its soldiers off-Earth, never to return as they fight against other aliens to colonize the few other planets out there that are suitable for habitation. If a soldier survives their two-year contract (most don’t, à la Starship Troopers), they’re rewarded with their own homestead on some other planet. Perry knows this, but what he experiences is more than he expected.
(Side note: I read the book over a decade ago, and the one thing that sticks in my mind is that all the new old recruits have lots and lots of sex with each other in their new bodies. The fact that this is the main part of the story I remember probably says more about me than about the book, but it does reflect the relatively lighter tone the books have compared to others in the subgenre.)
Here’s to hoping we see the movie version of Old Man’s War on Netflix (which, I hope, will include the new old soldiers enjoying the sensual side of getting equipped with hot bods) sooner rather than later.
