Edward Vann Neumeier (born August 24, 1957) is an American screenwriter, producer and director best known for his work on the science fiction movies RoboCop and Starship Troopers. He wrote the latter's sequels Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (which he also directed) and Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars.
Neumeier studied journalism at the University of California at Santa Cruz, then attended the School of Motion Picture and Television at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). After completing his bachelor's degree at UCLA, Neumeier started work in the Hollywood film business as a production assistant on the TV series Taxi. He went on to become a script reader in the Story Analyst's Union, working at Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures. During his time at Columbia, he advocated for putting Risky Business into production; after the film became an unexpected success, he moved on to a job as a junior executive at the Universal Pictures company.
Neumeier wrote his first outlines and film treatments for his first movie, RoboCop, as well as other spec scripts. He declined an offer of a vice-presidency at Universal Pictures, to develop the screenplay for RoboCop, with Michael Miner.
Neumeier also co-produced RoboCop, which was released in movie theaters in 1987 in North America and some other locations. This movie was a success, and it drew just over $50 million worth of ticket sales in the United States alone. The success of RoboCop also motivated the production of two sequels, RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, and also two TV series, one live-action and one animated. Most of the creators of RoboCop had left before the production of these sequels.
A decade after the first RoboCop movie was produced, Neumeier rejoined Paul Verhoeven to work on Starship Troopers, which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein, originally written in 1959. With violence and satire thrown into a story of efforts by the human race to ensure its survival, Starship Troopers was more successful in Europe, Asia, etc. than in North America, where it drew gross ticket sales of about $54 million at theaters, although Artforum selected this film as one of the "10 most artistic [film] achievements of 1997". Neumeier also appeared in this film in the brief role of a man convicted of murder and sentenced to immediate execution.
