ELYSIUM And CHAPPIE Director Neill Blomkamp On What He'd Do Differently With Each Film

South African director Neill Blomkamp burst on the scene in 2009 with his feature film directorial debut District 9.  With his $30 million sci-fi film going on to gross 7-times its budget, Blomkamp was the hottest young director in Hollywood at the time and came fairly close to helming a live-action Halo movie.  Since then, he's released Elysium in 2013 and Chappie in 2015, two films with their fair share of fans but not without an equal number of detractors.  

With his plans for a fifth Alien film starring Sigourney Weaver nixed by Ridley Scott and Fox,  Blomkamp has turned his focus on Oats Studios, his personal creation that will focus on CGI heavy sci-fi shorts (you can check out a few of them below) that are designed to function as proof of concepts.  Should any of the shorts prove especially popular or groundbreaking, full-length feature film could follow.

Speaking to ScreenRant about his latest venture, the discussion briefly touched on Elysium and Chappie.  On the former, Blomkamp admitted that testing out Elysium first in a manner similar to what he's doing now with Oats Studios could have led to a better finished product.

"Elysium is more something I feel like I could have done better. I think that if you were to take something like Elysium and play with it inside a setting like this you probably would hone it – you would end up, I think, with something well thought through and that has all of the thematic elements that I wanted. I still love the set up to Elysium. The idea of the separation of class warfare presented with this space ring is incredibly appealing to me and I would love to go back and make another movie in the world of Elysium because it’s compelling. I just think I can do a better job in setting up what the themes are more clearly and what the character’s motivations are. I can do it better, I think."

Previously, Blomkamp called Chappie one of the most painful experiences of his life but he tells ScreenRant that his remark shouldn't be interpreted as him stating that he wants to change things about the Hugh Jackman-led pic.  He explains that what was painful was that he came very close to the vision he had in his head and the audience still didn't respond the way he desired.

"Just to clear that up. Chappie was never something that I said I would have done differently. It was actually the opposite with Chappie. It’s that despite everything negative that happened with that film I will stand by the way that I made it. For me as the creator of it, I feel did exactly I had in my head. Whether I deserved criticism for it or not, I feel like I got it right."

You can check out all the Oats Studios shorts released so far by heading over to YouTube.


ZYGOTE stars Dakota Fanning [WARNING: NSFW]



RAKKA stars Sigourney Weaver [WARNING: NSFW]