With the highly anticipated filmed adaptation of Microsoft’s Halo video game stalled due to studio withdrawal, producer Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp are moving on to a big-budget sci-fi thriller titled District 9. Daily Variety reports that Jackson will produce through his Wingnut Films from a script by Blomkamp and with partner Terri Tatchell. Jackson’s WETA Workshop will handle visual effects.
Their Halo efforts collapsed when Universal and 20th Century Fox balked at the price tag, but Jackson and Blomkamp won’t have to go through a studio to get District off the ground. The entire film is being bankrolled by QED Int’l via a credit facility with Comerica Bank and Aramid Entertainment Fund.
District 9 will mark the feature film directorial debut of Blomkamp, best known for his commercial work, which includes the Clio Award-winning Citroen spot in which a car transforms into a robot and performs a hip-hop dance on a rooftop. His short films include Tempbot, in which an office gets some temporary help from a humanoid robot, and Alive in Joburg, a faux documentary about space aliens living in the slums of Johannesburg. He was recently hired by Microsoft to make a trio of ads for Halo 3.
Some plot details of District 9 will be unveiled to distributors at the America Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica Calif. this week. Production is slated to begin this spring in South Africa. Aramid Entertainment Fund will have worldwide distribution rights. Jackson is currently in the U.S. directing an adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel The Lovely Bones.
