Enter District 9

Once upon a time, a once unknown Neill Blomkamp, was contacted by a very well known Peter Jackson. Pete wanted Neill to work on a little film based on avery well known video game franchise. It 's a franchise involving missile launchers, Warthogs, space rings, and exoskeleton battle armor. You guessed it, its Halo. Then, Pete got ambitious and decided to have both Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox back the project. Unfortunately for him, the studios didn't want to play nice and share profits with Microsoft(because Microsoft owns the rights). As a result, the studios decided to back out of the project. Besides, they didn't trust Niell, the new guy on the block. And everyone lived happily ever after...

Wait, what? We all know that can't be the end of the story, after all, the protagonist didn't get to direct his movie. Indeed it is not the end.

Niell Blomkamp was a short film and advertisement director before Jackson contacted him. One of the short films he directed was called Alive in Joburg. When the Halo movie fell through the cracks, Jackson decided to give Niell a whack at making Alive into a feature length picture.

Enter District 9.

District 9, or D9, which is the feature length extension of Alive, is about an excluded demographic in South Africa which is confined to a certain area in Johannesburg called district 9. The catch is, the demographic is not human. Detailing an alternate present day, D9 chronicles humanity's attempt to coexist with space aliens who have come to earth seeking energy and refuge. The above picture is of one of the main characters who has been infected with alien bio-technology, hence his eye. (image retrieved from Slashfilm.com)

This is looking as though it's going to make a very interesting movie. Besides the concept being intriguing, Neill has a very visceral and edgy style of directing. As further example of this, one of his other short films is Tetra Vaal, which is a fictional promo video for a sort-of robocop for third-world countries. Additionally, some of his advertisement efforts include: two Citroen ad's featuring a transformer of the car dancing and ice skating, two Nike ads called Evolution andCrab, and a Gatorade Rain commercial.

I am certainly looking forward to this film, as this style has not really been explored in a big-budget sense. Simply put, this is a film to look out for.

For more information about the film, and to see it's official trailer, go to          www.d-9.com