With the release of the first trailer for Elysium, Neil Blomkamp’s sophomore sci-fi effort, one might expect the District 9 director to be utterly occupied with the impending release of his newest project. It turns out he’s more industrious than that: he already has post-Elysium projects on the brain, including a possible sequel to District 9.
Blomkamp recently spoke about what the future might hold for him, touching on both his desire to further explore the interment camps where District 9 took place, as well as his interest in making – surprisingly enough – a comedy.
Here’s a quote from the interview with Judao in which Blomkamp actually name-dropped the title, District 10:
“My goal is to do it. I already have a story and it’s pretty cool. At least I think it’s cool. The problem is when I’m going to do it. I want to make a comedy. After I’m done, what comes next? You don’t know. I feel like doing District 10, but I’m not sure.”
Naturally, nobody should take this as confirmation that District 10 is happening at all; think of a D9 sequel as a pipe dream that, admittedly, the film’s fans have been talking about for several years. That said, if Elysium ends up being a winner then Blomkamp could end up with all the pull he needs to get D10 off the ground. Could that film end up being green-lit sometime down the road? It’s not totally implausible, but for now it sounds like it’s only a feeling and nothing more.
The more interesting tidbit here may be the mention of the project Chappie, which is already in development as of last year. Blomkamp talked about this film before, so its existence isn’t news in the slightest, but the idea of Blomkamp tackling, in his own words, “sci-fi with some hilarious situations” should easily pique the curiosity of his fans. District 9 boasted a few moments of wry, dark comedy, interspersed with the Apartheid allegory, so Chappie isn’t completely outside of his comfort zone.
But details on that film remain slim, and the direction a D9 sequel might take is similarly unknown. (Though knee-jerk speculation would either suggest a continuation of Wikus Van de Merwe’s story in the aftermath of his Kafka-esque transformation, or no sequel at all.) Hopefully, Blomkamp will decide to be as forthcoming on Chappie as he was with Elysium and will chat a bit more about the plot, – but for now we only know that he isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
We’ll keep you posted on Chappie and, should it happen, District 10 when more info surfaces on them.
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Elysium opens August 9th, 2013
