District 9 opens to rave reviews and tops the US box office over the weekend

Film critics around the world love it, and so does the US box office.

This weekend, District 9, the pretty much ignored, low budget – by Hollywood standards, sci-fi movie was #1 at the US box office with US$37 million in ticket sales, ahead of GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra (US$22.5 million), and The Time Travellers Wife (US$19 million).

I wrote about Peter Jackson and the amazing Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 and earlier short films, at the beginning of May 2009   – and predicted it would be the sleeper sensation of the year. Happily it seems I was right.

District 9 is an amazing social yarn – gritty and gory, but a great story that raises lots of  ‘real world’ questions about our treatment of refugees and minorities, and the role of governments and the UN, amongst others.

What’s really terrific is that the movie has achieved its accolades with virtually no mainstream hype, but good on Sony Pictures – they got the distribution rights to the movie and created a cool, quirky advertising campaign that included street posters, billboards and bus ads, asking people to call a toll-free number to report nonhuman activity. Also, check out the campaign website!

Apparently this resulted in thousands of calls.

Congrats to Neill Blomkamp, Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor and the special effects wizards at Weta Workshop for another amazing cinematic experience!

New Movies 2009 – District 9 is coming….

Even though we are in the midst of a crippling recession, all the talk is of 2009 being the year that Hollywood fights back, and with the release of the new StarTrek, Harry Potter etc, they could  be right. It seems that in times of economic recession, people crave escapism from their day to day lives.

However, there’s another movie due to open in August this year – virtually ignored by the mainstream media, but District 9 could become the ‘sleeper’ hit of the year.

I had the good fortune to meet the Director, Neill Blomkamp a couple of years ago when he was down in  NZ working with Peter Jackson and Weta Workshops’ Richard Taylor. He was originally here to direct Halo – the movie.

Neill’s showreel included some awesome gritty ‘reportage / documentary’ style, short sci-fi movies including Alive in Jo’burg and  Tetra Vaal,  and from  the trailer for District 9 above, it looks like the movie will be a real treat (Independence Day Vs Alien Nation perhaps?), but in Blomkamp’s gritty, super-realistic style.

Peter Jackson is the Producer for District 9 and although the Halo project didn’t come off this time around, it seems Neill’s time in NZ was not altogether wasted.