Neill Blomkamp, the director of “District 9,” has filmed a secret, supernatural horror film that he made during the pandemic in absence of being able to shoot his latest sci-fi.
Blomkamp teamed with AGC Studios on the untitled movie that he filmed in British Columbia over the summer, making it his first feature film since 2015’s “Chappie.”
Plot details are being kept under wraps, but Blomkamp wrote the screenplay, and the film is expected to be finished by spring of next year. Also attached to the film are editor Julian Clarke, who worked with Blomkamp on “District 9,” “Elysium” and “Chappie,” and director of photography Byron Kopman.
Neill Blomkamp had previously teamed with AGC Studios for “Inferno,” a sci-fi starring Taylor Kitsch that was meant to begin filming in early 2020. But with the pandemic delaying production on that movie, Blomkamp and AGC pivoted to this film, and production hopes to resume on “Inferno” later in 2021.
The director’s “Inferno” is an original story that examines the uneasy balance between humans and alien life all within a gritty and realistic action film genre. Kitsch will play a cop who is called to investigate a seemingly ordinary murder in the New Mexico desert. The arrival of the FBI confirms his suspicions that something much bigger — perhaps even extra-terrestrial — is at play. The hunt for the killer soon puts him face-to-face with a humanoid beast who will stop at nothing to exterminate the one witness to the crime. As the hunt becomes personal with the abduction of his wife, everything he knows about the universe will be challenged, and our connection to other life forces in the universe will be revealed.
Neill Blomkamp’s first feature “District 9” imagined aliens landing on Earth through the lens of apartheid in South Africa and found alien immigrants living in slums and experiencing racism. The film was made on a $30 million budget and grossed $211 million worldwide before earning four Oscar nominations. The success of the film catapulted him to make “Elysium” starring Matt Damon and “Chappie” with Dev Patel.
Deadline first reported the news of the project.
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