We are still very much in the dark when it comes to Neill Blomkamp’s next movie, Elysium. We know the District 9 director is re-teaming with Sharlto Copley, and that Matt Damon and Jodie Foster are involved, but so far no details on their characters have been revealed.

While on the rounds promoting The Beaver (which she directed) Jodie Foster took part in an interview with The L.A Times (via /Film), and at the end it mentions Foster will play “a head of state on an alien planet” in Elysium.

Although it’s only a minor detail, it does give us something to speculate on. Foster could be playing an alien on this other planet, or she could be a human leader on a planet which has been colonized by humans. Not a lot is known about the actual story, other than it is set 100 years in the future. Blomkamp described it last year as “totally original, it’s my own story…It’s set on another planet, but it’s cool. It’s violent, very violent, and very unique hopefully. We’ll see.”

Blomkamp will have his sets designed by Syd Mead (Blade Runner) who isn’t easy to hire, but he liked District 9 so agreed to come aboard. The film will begin pre-production in April, and start filming in July in Vancouver before moving to Mexico City. Blomkamp will then have quite a lot of time for post-production, with Sony planning to release the film on March 8th, 2013.

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Variety are reporting that character actor William Fichtner, last seen opposite Nicolas Cage in Drive Angry 3D, is in final talks to join the growing cast of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s follow up Elysium.

Fichtner is a perrenial ‘that guy from tv’ face probably best known for his roles on the small screen in Prison Break and Entourage, and small but memorable parts in big movies such as The Dark Knight, Armageddon and Black Hawk Down. He will be joining the already attached Jodie Foster, Matt Damon, Sharlto Copley and Wagner Moura.

The film was pitched to studios recently by Blomkamp and his backers Media Rights Capital with Sony snapping up distribution within hours, such is Blomkamp’s standing after his critically and commercially lauded debut. Blomkamp has described it as another sci-fi film but different to District 9. The story is said to be set 150 years in the future, will have some elements of social allegory as well as being very violent and very unique.

Blomkamp has also been lucky enough to secure the services of noted futurist/artist/production designer Syd Mead, probably most famous for his work on Blade Runner and a man very choosy about what he works on these days.

Elysium is set to go before cameras in late Spring in Vancouver for a March 8th 2013 release.

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Despite reports last month that Jodie Foster had signed on to star opposite Matt Damon and Sharlto Copley in Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, the actress has denied she is involved with the movie. At least, not yet anyway.

From Empire:

“Actually, I’m not on that movie! I don’t know how that got out there,” says the actress. “Well, I’m not not on it, but I’m not booked or involved in a deal yet. People want to jump the gun on Neill because he’s the new David Fincher or whatever. And I get why – I love him and District 9 was my favourite film of 2009. But we’re just not at that time in the process yet…”

It would be interesting to see Jodie Foster in a big budget sci-fi movie, simply because we haven’t seen the actress in over a decade. Foster will next be seen alongside Mel Gibson in The Beaver, which she also directed, in April.

Not a lot is known about the story, other than it is set 100 years in the future. Blomkamp described it last year as “totally original, it’s my own story…It’s set on another planet, but it’s cool. It’s violent, very violent, and very unique hopefully. We’ll see.”

Blomkamp will have his sets designed by Syd Mead (Blade Runner) who isn’t easy to hire, but he liked District 9 so agreed to come aboard. The film will begin pre-production in April, and start filming in July in Vancouver before moving to Mexico City.

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According to THR District 9 director Neill Blomkamp took meetings with various studios today to pitch his next sci-fi movie Elysium, and Sony has decided once again to back the director. The aim is to have the movie ready for 2012 and the budget is said to be around $120 million, much higher than the $30 million Blomkamp had for District 9.

Over the past few months Blomkamp managed to get Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley to sign on, which must have played a key role in Sony putting up the money. Not a lot is known about the story, other than it is set 100 years in the future. Blomkamp described it last year as “totally original, it’s my own story…It’s set on another planet, but it’s cool. It’s violent, very violent, and very unique hopefully. We’ll see.”

Blomkamp will have his sets designed by Syd Mead (Blade Runner) who isn’t easy to hire, but he liked District 9 so agreed to come aboard. The film will begin pre-production in April, and start filming in July in Vancouver before moving to Mexico City.

This will definitely be one to keep an eye on.

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District 9 director Neill Blomkamp is putting together quite a cast for his next movie, Elysium. As well as re-teaming with Sharlto Copley Blomkamp brought Matt Damon on-board last month, and now the director has added Jodie Foster to the cast.

According to Deadline Media Rights Capital, who are financing the movie, have yet to shop it to studios. While story details on the sci-fi are slim Blomkamp described it last year as “totally original, it’s my own story…It’s set on another planet, but it’s cool. It’s violent, very violent, and very unique hopefully. We’ll see.”

The “very violent” part may scare some studios off distributing, but hopefully the impressive cast is an incentive. The intention for Media Rights Capital is to give Blomkamp as much creative control as possible as it worked quite well with District 9, so Elysium will certainly be one to keep an eye on.

Jodie Foster will next be seen alongside Mel Gibson in The Beaver, which she directed, in April.

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Deadline has confirmed that Neill Blomkamp’s second film will be an original sci-fi feature titled Elysium, and that it will star Sharlto Copley, who played the lead role in Blomkamp’s debut District 9.

There’s not much else to say here at the moment, other than the fact that Blomkamp is currently trying to choose a distributor for the movie, as well as working out budgets and beginning to look at casting. Apparently “There is a lot of interest from every studio,” which is all well and good, as long as the companies don’t back out at the last minute (as Universal and Fox did with Blomkamp and Peter Jackson’s proposed Halo movie).

An incredibly vague idea of the plot is described by Deadline:

Elysium is Blomkamp’s long-awaited story set in the far future on another planet and, like District 9, is filled with many sociopolitical ideas wrapped up inside a Hollywood action film.

It’s tantalising enough. Interestingly, apparently Blomkamp is including a graphic novel in his presentation of the film. Hopefully that means there are some awesome visuals to get across.

District 9 is one of my absolute favourite movies of recent memory, and while I would like to see a sequel at some point, at the moment I’m happy to see anything Blomkamp has to offer, especially if it’s sci-fi. And more of Copley’s stellar acting will be great to see too.

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Last week, a rumor spread suggesting District 9 director and Peter Jackson protoge Neill Blomkamp might direct The Hobbit. But Blomkamp’s representatives tell Vulture that no one from Warner Bros. or MGM has even approached the director about the project at all.

They do, however, offer up the title of his newest sci-fi endeavor: Elysium. Hit the jump to find out what we know.

Vulture says Elysium is “an original sci-fi script of [Blomkamp's]” that is “set on another planet.” At Comic-Con last year, Slashfilm got some hints about the director’s next project and they line up well with the description of Elysium so far.

I’ve got one science fiction idea that I’m absolutely in love with, which I’m pretty sure is going to be my next film. 99% sure…It’s totally original, it’s my own story…It’s set on another planet, but it’s cool. It’s violent, very violent, and very unique hopefully. We’ll see.

It is science fiction and it has many sociopolitical ideas that interest me. Those ideas are wrapped up inside something that is like a Hollywood action film…The setting for the next film takes place 150 years from now.

Media Rights Capital is financing the project as well as giving the director ownership of the final product – quite the deal for a sophomore director. Blomkamp has stated that he’s not interested in big budget productions for fear of losing creative control, so that explains why he’s sticking near the 30-40 million dollar range and not jumping on The Hobbit bandwagon. Oh yeah, and that pesky little detail about MGM nearing bankruptcy probably has something to do with it as well.

As interesting as a Blomkamp-directed Hobbit might be, I think most of us can agree that we want to see this guy churning out ideas of his own and making films the way he wants to make them. With an up-and-coming talent like this, the last thing we (as an audience) wants is for him to burn out too early and for us to miss out on some potentially great films from a new voice in the filmmaking community.

What do you think about Elysium? Do you still think Blomkamp is the right guy for The Hobbit?

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TheOneRing.net has posted a slew of spy reports from various sources, with lots of different tidbits on production of The Hobbit films. Perhaps most shocking of these: District 9 director Neill Blomkamp could be in the running to take the helm.

Even though Guillermo del Toro left the project recently, apparently production and casting is continuing as normal, as if there were a director present (as MrCere notes in the article, casting without a director would be a little strange). Additionally, shooting is said to begin in early 2011 as opposed to the end of this year, which had previously been stated to be the start date by people such as Ian McKellen.

Peter Jackson does not want to direct the films – despite studios trying to convince him in order to get the project moving, he wouldn’t have hired del Toro all that time ago if he wanted to direct it himself. And according to one of TheOneRing.net’s sources:

(I) was given the breakdown details for the film, which included who the director is: Neil Bloomkamp.

MrCere already commented on the spelling there, so I won’t do it again. Jackson and Blomkamp have already established a good working relationship; Jackson having worked as producer on D9. So this isn’t out of the realm of possibility at all, and MrCere states that: “My personal opinion is that this information is correct.” Hm.

A summary of the film’s overall status is provided for us:

1. Jackson doesn’t want to do it
2. He wants somebody he trusts and can be sure of
3. Casting is happening now
4. Pre-pre-production is happening now
5. MGM and Warners need a talent in place yesterday
6. The platform for making a big genre splash announcement is approaching
7. The schedule fits with rumors from many sources
8. Many spies are sounding similar notes
9. One tells us they have seen the film breakdown with Blomkamp directing

Let me go on the record as saying I don’t really want this. District 9 was an absolutely amazing film, and I don’t want to see new original projects from Blomkamp put on the backburner in order for The Hobbit to get made. It already ate up a huge amount of Guillermo del Toro’s time, another director who I’m desperately looking forward to new films from. Don’t get me wrong: The Lord of the Rings trilogy makes up three of my favourite films of all time. And I’d love to see a Hobbit film. With some of del Toro’s creativity already in place in pre-production, I guess I just wish Peter Jackson would direct it himself.

On the other hand, a Blomkamp-directed Hobbit could be awesome. So it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

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Or should we say District 8? Sharlto Copley, who played protagonist Wikus van de Merwe in Neill Blomkamp’s 2009 masterpiece, spoke to Empire today regarding the sequel to District 9.

Copley says that the second District 9 will potentially begin development in 2 years, after Blomkamp’s second feature film:

“Neill wants it and I want it. Neill’s doing another film first. Then I think if everything goes according to plan we’ll do the second film in about two years time. That story can go in so many different ways. There’s a whole universe. I’m sure a lot of writers say that, but we actually have an entire universe.”

I’m glad that the guys have an “entire universe;” it’s exciting to know that District 9 has even more background and plotlines than we saw in the original film. Regarding the story of the sequel, Copley says:

“There’s a million ways you can go. Neil’s actually very interested in prequels as well; he’s said that a few times. We wouldn’t do the traditional Hollywood version of the sequel which would just be 100 aliens fighting humans.”

(Potential spoilers below! But it’s an article about a sequel, so if you were reading this without having seen the first one, then that’s a bit of a silly thing to do)

It’s been heavily suggested as far back as January that the next film will be a prequel, and with Copley’s comments here, it seems very likely that that’s the direction “District 10″ will take. I’d love to see everything that happened before the events of District 9; co-writer Terri Tatchell was quoted as saying that a big chunk of the original’s screenplay involving MNU trying to help the prawns inside the mothership was cut, due to budgetary constraints. However – ever since the end of D9, I’ve been waiting for Christopher Johnson to come back to Earth with an epic army and kick some serious ass. Copley outright says that’s not what they’d do, which is a shame… Regardless, I think I’d still rather see what happened after Wikus’s adventures rather than before. Maybe they’ll do a sequel as well, at some point? Who knows…

Interestingly, Copley also says that two shorts were filmed with the Wikus character before D9 was filmed.

“This thing started shooting in 2005, and before we shot the film we shot Alive In Joburg and two other shorts as part of Neil’s creative development process. Those next two films actually had my character, Wikus, in them, although I wasn’t called Wikus in them. So they were two parts of the development of the world and where the story was going to go and all that.”

It really does seem as if these guys have a “bigger picture” planned out, and whatever it is, I want to see more of it.

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For those unaware of the history behind Halo’s attempts to reach the big screen, here’s a quick rundown.

Peter Jackson was going to produce the film back in 2006 along with his special effects company WETA (Avatar). He brought newcomer Neill Blomkamp onboard to direct, but 20th Century Fox and Universal eventually pulled the plug as they didn’t want to take a huge risk with a first time director. Blomkamp would later go on to make District 9, showing that he wasn’t much of a risk at all, however the rights have since reverted back to Microsoft which means they now decide when a movie gets made.

In August last year there were signs of movement as Stuart Beattie (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) decided to write a ’spec script’ (which is basically a script he didn’t get paid for and which he would present to movie studios in the hope of getting it made) called Halo: Fall of Reach. There was talk of Steven Spielberg being interested in producing, although Microsoft said “the Halo feature film remains on hold”.

Now Frank O’Connor, who leads the Halo world at Microsoft, has told IGN that the film will happen. Eventually.

“We’re going to make a movie when the time is right,” he said. “We own the IP. If we want to make a movie, the scale of all the other stuff that we do changes dramatically. We make tens and tens of millions of dollars on ancillary stuff, toys, apparel, music and publishing. If we do a movie all of that will grow exponentially. We have some numbers if we do a movie, but it changes everything. It also changes our target and age demographic.”

It sucks that companies have to take merchandise into account when making movies, but on the other hand at least they aren’t making any old movie just to sell toys (G.I. Joe, that dig was aimed at you).

On reflection Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp would probably have made a great movie, but it is unlikely the pair will return as they have moved on to other projects. Hopefully Microsoft start working on one over the next few years because waiting until 2020 for a Halo movie won’t be fun.

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