Just because one of my old high school pals worked on both movies, that doesn't mean I really love both Starship Troopers movies. OK, I actually do love the first one, while the DTV sequel ... meh, a Saturday afternoon DVD, at best. And now it looks like the pair is about to become a trilogy, and get this: Johnny Rico is coming back!

Yep. According to reliable sources, veteran sci-fi screenwriter Ed Neumeier is poised to make his directorial debut on Starship Troopers 3, and I wasn't kidding about Johnny Rico: Original Trooper Casper Van Dien is planning to make his return to Bug Central! Having written both entries already (in addition to the original Robocop and, um, Anaconda 2), Neumeier is obviously pretty familiar with the genre material. (The first Starship flick was based on the classic novel by Robert Heinlein and resulted in a still buzzed-about Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action satire amalgam.)

Production is set to begin in South Africa next March, which means Starship Troopers 3 should be hitting your DVD stacks by this time next year.