Since District 9 made back it’s entire budget and then some in its opening weekend, and the film had a relatively open ending [much like Zac Ephron, ZING!], it should come as no surprise that a sequel may be forthcoming.  To read more about it, you can check out filmschoolrejects (possible spoilers in article).

The video below is Alive In Joburg, the 6-minute film District 9 was based on, both from the same director (Neill Blomkamp).  More of his short films are available at buzzfeed.  I’m not saying I’d drink Neill’s bathwater or anything, but he’s pretty cool, I guess.  It’s whatever.

*continues writing ”Mr. Robo Blomkamp” in purple glitter ink inside Lisa Frank trapper keeper*

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District 9, which cost $30 million to make, earned the top spot at the box office last weekend with $37 million.  Here’s the story behind this surprise hit and most-tweeted topic on Friday (la dee da) via Nikke Finke:

District 9 director Neill Blomkamp was supposed to be Peter Jackson’s helmer on Halo, which went down in flames. But Peter and his partner Fran Walsh kept Neill in New Zealand to develop his short film, Alive In Joburg. Jackson then turned it into a hard-cover faux graphic novel. That book went to Peter’s longtime manager Ken Kamins to arrange financing and set it up as a film. Ken made the decision to go indie, [...].  The result is not just another Amy Pascal pic starring Adam or Will but, according to the 88% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, an imaginative, creative, cutting-edge pic made outside the studio system.

That’s right.  Another graphic-novel-turned-movie.  Oh well, at least it wasn’t a gum wrapper or a board game.

G.I. Joe, predictably dropped about 60% in its second week to take the #2 spot with $22.5 million.  The Time Traveler’s Wife took third place with a disappointing $19.2 million weekend (the studio expected at least $25 million).

Among the other films opening last weekend, The Goods opened at #6 with $5.35 million.  Bandslam took 13th place with $2.25 million, earning only $1,061 per screen (ha ha).   Ponyo opened at #9 with $3.5 million.  It Might Get Loud made $14,429 per screen in limited release.  (full top 10 below)

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Opening this weekend:

District 9 (final trailer above) — South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp’s critically-acclaimed faux-documentary about alien visitors being segregated to an alien ghetto by distrusting humans.  It’s a clever metaphor about race relations, like when I throw rocks at my Estonian neighbors.
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A lot of people are predicting Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 to be the sleeper hit of the summer, and now we’ve got a full-length trailer. (Trailer also available in HD at Yahoo)

Thirty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in Johannesburg, South Africa’s District 9 as the world’s nations argued over what to do with them. [Yahoo]

The film was shot documentary-style, and as you can see from the trailer, robots also seem to factor into the plot somehow.  Anyway, the humans fear the aliens, so they marginalize them from society and control their movements, and the aliens’ frustrations eventually makes them violent, which only proves to the humans they were right to stick them in ghettoes all along. Anyone else smell a parable for Palestinians, or some other ethnic minority group?  Then again, the director’s South African, so it might just be an allegory for how much he hates black people.  They can get away with that in South Africa.  Why?  Diplomatic immunity.
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I posted a trailer for Niell Blomkamp’s District 9 the other day, which a lot of people are predicting to be the sleeper hit of the summer. In the first version, there was a scene in which an alien was being interrogated and they had his face blurred like a cop show, which I thought was sort of charmingly goofy.  But apparently that’s not going in the final movie, because in this trailer his face is unblurred and he has subtitles.

The only question now is whether I can take two hours of South African accents.  It really is an awful-sounding accent.  Or maybe it only sounds awful because of Lethal Weapon 2.  Here’s a fun game: next time you meet a South African, no matter what they say, just point your finger pistol at them and go, “…It’s just been revoked.”

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