Matt Damon and Jodie Foster join Neill Blomkamp's Elysium
- 12 January 2011
- John Howell
If you've been asking yourself what director Neill Blomkamp has been up to since creating the outstanding District 9 (one of my favourites of 2009), you'll be pleased to hear that his second film will also be a big budget science fiction epic. His new film will be called Elysium.
In Greek Mythology, Elysium was a part of the Underworld. The Elysian Fields (Elysian Plains) were the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous.
Blomkamp is re-teaming with his District 9 star Sharlto Copley. Copley played Wikus van de Merwe in District 9 and also played HM Murdock in the awful The A-Team remake. Elysium is not a sequel to District 9 though, but an independent film in its own right.
Awhile back Deadline reported that a source had revealed to them that "Neil is taking meetings all over town. There is a lot of interest from every studio," and Blomkamp is including a graphic novel in his presentation. Elysium is set in the far future on another planet and is overlayed with many sociopolitical ideas, just like District 9. Apparently Sony is still pushing Blomkamp for a District 9 sequel too.
In a more recent article, Deadline revealed that Matt Damon and Jodie Foster had both signed on for the new movie. Foster hasn't been in a science fiction film since Contact, while Damon will be in the soon to be released Philip K. Dick SF short story adaptation, The Adjustment Bureau. Spinoff Online recently quoted Matt Damon's thoughts on the new film:
"It's a great idea," Damon said. " It's 100 percent Neill, I'll put it that way. And that's about the highest kind of praise I can give it."
District 9 is a hard film to forget and I urge you to pick up a copy on blu-ray if you haven't watched it already. For those of you who have already done so, a new film should hopefully be here by the end of the year (or at least the end of the next?).
According to the Los Angeles Times, District 9 director Neil...
If you haven't already watched Neill Blomkamp's wonderfully ...
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