District 9 was one of the best films of 2009 and was a massive breakthrough for its co-writer and director Neill Blomkamp. The film has a bit of a cliffhanger ending where you’re not sure what’s going to happen next with Wikus and Christopher, but Blomkamp decided to use his juice from the film to pursue other original sci-fi projects such as Elysium and Chappie before attempting to create a sequel to Aliens and a reboot for RoboCop, both of which never came to fruition. Nevertheless, he’s kept busy with short films and even a low-budget horror movie during the pandemic called Demonic. And it turns out he’s also filling his time with finally getting around to District 10.
Earlier today, Blomkamp tweeted out the following:
However, the speed at which District 10 comes together still remains unknown. Blomkamp was previously working on a sci-fi thriller called Inferno before the pandemic shut everything down and he switched gears to work on Demonic. Presumably, Inferno is still going to take priority over District 10. Blomkamp also said in a 2017 Reddit AMA [via Variety] that the reason he hasn’t rushed into a District 9 sequel is that he wants to make sure he gets the same thematic resonance as the original:
“Ok, so with ‘District 10’ the basic answer is yes,” he replied to the AMA’s most upvoted question. “I want to go back to that world and tell rest of the story with Wikus and Christopher. The issue right now is that I have many other projects and ideas that I also want to work on and complete…..and most importantly, the exact right REASON to make District 10 needs be very clear. The first film was based so explicitly on real themes and topics from South Africa that effected [sic] me greatly growing up there, that we need to make sure the next film does not forget that.”
Personally, District 9 is a film I loved when it was released, but I haven’t revisited it in some time, and I’m curious to see how well it holds up over 10 years later.
via Collider