“Sexuality has been moved out of movies,” he continued. “In the 1970s you could talk about it. But you arrive now, decades later, and those movies are not possible anymore. It would be very difficult to make a film like ‘Showgirls’ or ‘Basic Instinct’ now.”

Instead, Hollywood has shifted to big-budget, high-concept blockbusters that are about “crashing and blowing up. Sometimes these movies are fun, but the narrative tells you nothing about us now,” Verhoeven said. “I don’t see any other thought in Marvel or Bond movies.”

And the lack of sensuality in modern Bond films is another cause for concern: “There was always sex in Bond!” Verhoeven concluded. “They did not show a breast, or whatever. But they had some sex.”

“I’d go back to reality,” he cautioned of Bond movies, admitting he liked “Casino Royale” but not “No Time to Die.” “Cars that don’t leap up into the sky.”

Nice that Verhoeven's making a return to Hollywood with his next film, but leery that it'll share the same fate as Adrian Lyne's Dark Water, hacked to pieces by the studio (losing a full half-hour! ) and dumped onto a streaming service instead of receiving a full theatrical release.