Now that filmmaker Neill Blomkamp has made a dazzling debut with DISTRICT 9, what does his future hold?
Don’t expect him to go the traditional Hollywood route. As he explains in a refreshingly honest interview with the LA Times, “I don’t like it at all. I like where we’re going with technology and global integration but the fact that corporations and dollars rule everything in our lives, I don’t like it. This isn’t the Hollywood I wanted to be part of. This isn’t the version of it that I saw when I was a kid… DISTRICT 9 and every other movie is treated like fast food. It’s promoted relentlessly and then it’s gone.”
Would Blomkamp actually consider revisiting the alternate world he created in DISTRICT 9? “The concept of aliens in Johannesburg is such an appealing idea to me and the issues of race and how they meet. All of the things that I had going on with it. I wouldn’t mind messing around with it again. I’m open to it if the story works and there’s a reason to do it. And [Sharlto Copley’s character] Wikus is so funny to me, I’m very interested in a sort of passive racist like that. If you go forward [with his story] it’s more of a traditional film but if you go backward I’d be intrigued in that. I’m not so interested in aliens coming back and blowing things up but [a prequel] might be interesting.”
So what about his next project? No real details on what it’s about or who’s in it, but Blomkamp offers a couple of bits: “The setting for the next film takes place 150 years from now. There are two cities that I’m choosing between. They would play as themselves. They are not in South Africa.” Also, he has “one idea for the lead guy that I actually haven’t told to anybody yet because it’s been brewing in the back of my head. Everybody knows him but not really as a star. I think that would fine.”
Blomkamp obviously loves sci-fi, but he’s not limiting himself to the genre: “I like using science fiction to talk about subjects through the veneer of science fiction. The other reason is I’m like a total visual kid. I grew up as an artist. Science fiction allows for design and creatures and guns and all the stuff that I like as well. So I think most of the films I make, I’m sure, will be in that category. But I can also see myself making a film like BLACK HAWK DOWN, and I could also totally do horror. Science fiction and horror, that right there is my optimum. I can see myself doing out-there comedy like Monty Python, absolutely, I would love that. Seriously.”
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