Everyone wants to be in the Neill Blomkamp business these days. Sony Pictures proved they want him most of all, as /Film reports that the studio has cut a deal with Media Rights Capital and picked up the rights to distribute the District 9 helmer’s next picture, Elysium, for a cool $120 million. Better than a sharp stick in the eye.
Sony and MRC have also signed a long-term deal with the director and are setting up his third feature, Chappie, which he will make after Elysium. Details on Chappie are nonexistent at this point, but we know more about Elysium: it’s a Blade Runner-ish allegory set a century in the future (BR production designer Syd Mead is even working on it), it will star Matt Damon, Sharlto Copley and Jodie Foster, and Blomkamp & co. shopped it around town for awhile before Sony swooped in and nabbed it.
Sounds freakin’ awesome. Deadline‘s scoop provided this exuberant quote from Blomkamp:
“I literally could not be happier. I have a brilliant relationship with Sony. I loved them during District 9, they 100% get this film and they get me. Elysium is in very good hands.”
His enthusiasm should be perfectly justified. District 9 was fresh, inventive, and thoroughly satisfying for any sci-fi fan – sequel-baiting ending or no. Given that Sony threw it’s full weight behind Blomkamp’s feature debut, Elysium will have massive resources behind it.
Aimed at a holiday, 2012 release date, Elysium should be the cinematic experience of dipping one’s head in a pail of fresh, cool water after the two-year barrage of reboots, comic-book movies and sequels that will precede it. And, like Inception, it could hopefully give weight to the astonishing trend of original sci-fi ideas once again proving popular with audiences. (Can I get an Amen?)
What do you think of this project called Elysium? Are you a District 9 fan?