One of the better films of the 2009 summer season was District 9, the directorial debut of commercial/short-film director, Neill Blomkamp. Boasting an impressive set of special effects for a film with such a low budget (around $30 million), it proved all those nay-sayers wrong who thought giving Blomkamp the chance to direct such an ambitious film was a bad idea considering he’d never done a feature film before.

Those of you who saw District 9 might remember that a sequel is a possibility (although IMO not essential), and some people actually thought that might be his next project. But today we learn that isn’t the case as BFDealMemo is reporting (thanks to /Film for picking up on it) that Media Rights Capital has committed financially to Blomkamp’s next film.

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Last week we reported on an interview with Hugh Jackman where he joked about how he always says he’s not doing another X-Men film until he reads the script. He continued to jokingly say that he’d do eleven more movies as Wolverine and that was it.

The next appearance of Hugh’s buffed up mutant will likely come with a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine which will see the Marvel poster boy head to Japan to explore the stories of one of the most classic Wolverine tales from the comics. One question surrounding this movie is whether or not director Gavin Hood would be asked to return by Fox Studios to helm the follow-up.

In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Hood touches on this subject and that of District 9, the sleeper hit of the year directed by a fellow South Africa, Neill Blomkamp.

The A-Team has come together!

Well, almost.  Last week, BlackFilm.com broke the news that District 9 star, Sharlto Copley, had been offered the role of the fourth and final character yet to be cast in The A-Team movie.

If true, that could mean Copley would play H.M “Howling Mad” Murdock alongside MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as B.A. Baracus, Liam Neeson as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith and Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck.

Now comes confirmation that Copley is in fact close to acquiring his second major film acting gig, and also joining the cast could be the beautiful Jessica Biel!

Happy Friday everyone! Today we have gathered the latest posters to come out for this week’s poster round-up.

Screen Rant’s wall this week now includes one-sheets for The Box, Pandorum, Growl, Takers, Red Cliff, The Shrine, District 9 and Michael Jackson’s This is It.

In addition to those, we also have four great character banners for Where the Wild Things Are and and as a bonus, a photo for The Twilight Saga’s New Moon.

Let’s get to it…

On Monday Screen Rant reported that the film adaptation of The A-Team had finally decided on who was to play the infamous role of B.A. Baracus, a character made famous by everyone’s favorite Mr. T.

The character was confirmed to be played by MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, becoming the third member of the team officially cast out of four. The other two of course being Liam Neeson as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith and Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck.

Now it seems, they might have finally chosen the man who play H.M “Howling Mad” Murdock… District 9’s Sharlto Copley?

Those of us who checked out District 9 this summer, after a long, hot string of disappointing blockbusters, nabbed themselves one of the summer’s most rewarding, worthwhile and technically impressive films. One thing that stood out about the film (as a blockbuster) was that it wasn’t just about the action, but rather had a whole lot more food for thought, along with the explosions, chases and gunfire.

Well, Thai audiences MIGHT walk away sorely disappointed after looking at these District 9 posters, purchasing their tickets and settling into their seats to watch (what they think is) an action-packed movie, only to find out that it’s not as full-on as the posters suggested. Before I say anymore, take a look at the two tragically misleading posters below (click for larger size):

The last we heard on the Halo feature film project was from a few weeks back when rumors popped up online that Steven Spielberg would be involved with the adaptation of the record-breaking successful Microsoft/Bungee video game franchise, Halo.

At the time, it was reported that Spielberg may produce the film but Microsoft came out and clarified that the film was still on hold in order for them to focus on their upcoming installments for the Halo video game franchise: Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach.

With ODST coming out in the coming weeks, that means more marketing and more awesome videos for the franchise. On that note, we have an awesome new one to show you as well a look-back on the 7-minute short made by District 9 director, Neill Blomkamp, for Halo 3.

Well, the summer movie season is officially over, and while box office earnings are way up, it seems like the quality of the films have actually gone way down.  But for every few badly-written movies (like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Transformers 2, and G.I. Joe–though some will say it’s not that bad), there was a diamond in the rough like District 9.  So why were so many movies so bad in the summer of ‘09, even if they did make a lot of money?  Hint: The Writers Strike!

Before the summer began, I wrote an article about how the 2007 Writers Strike might affect the summer 2009 movies.  I speculated that back in 2007, studios were nervous about how long the writers strike could last, leaving them with a possible lack of films for the fall/winter 2008 and all-important summer 2009 season (early May to late August 2009). To make sure they had big films lined up for Summer ‘09, the studios pushed to have their big-budget scripts quick-finished before the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) contracts were up in November 2007 and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in summer of 2008.

We here at Screen Rant make it a point to stay engaged with our readers (if you haven’t seen our epic comment sections) and usually – albeit after much debate – our forums reach some kind of equilibrium of opinion – if only settling into the usual left, right, middle ground spectrum.

The reaction to District 9, Neil Blomkamp’s feature-film debut about refugee aliens living in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been surprising. While the movie is earning high praise from critics (including us) and enjoyed a strong opening weekend at the box office, there is still a minority opinion floating around that this film isn’t as great as people are saying it is. And, despite high praise from just about all of us on the Screen Rant staff, there have been some strongly expressed criticism from a considerable pool of our readership.

So let’s talk about it! What is so right (or so wrong) about District 9?

[WARNING: This Article Contains Heavy Spoilers about District 9]

District 9 opened over the weekend to bank approximately $37 million. It marked the first full-length feature directorial debut for Neill Blomkamp and the first real acting gig for its star, Sharlto Copley. The pair made executive producer, Peter Jackson, look good for putting his faith in them.

Blomkamp and Copley spoke on Fangoria Radio to promote the film and briefly discussed the potential of a sequel. They both are interested and with the money this will earn at the box office and on home video, it’s very likely.

This week:

Aliens invade the box office with District 9; get ready to see more Saw; Elvis talks Bubba Nosferatu; St Elmo’s Fire gets remade; Dennis Quaid and Tim Allen join Ron Shelton in Q School, while Maggie Q looks for a Priest; Godzilla may be going on the warpath again; Sony takes a dose of Doctor Parnassus and Wall Street 2 adds another cast member.

Box Office

It looks like originality won out at the box office for a change. Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 banked a cool $37 million over the weekend. The Peter Jackson produced Sci-Fi film had a negative cost of just $30 million and with great reviews it looks like this could do well in the long run too.

Neill Blomkamp makes his full-length feature-film debut with District 9 today (unfortunately for us Brits, it doesn’t open until September 4th). Blomkamp was once attached to direct the on-off-on-again Halo movie, and a lot of people had their doubts about him directing District 9 (under the eye of producer Peter Jackson) simply because he was a “newbie.”

You may not know that before he set his sights on feature films, Blomkamp was a short film and commercials director. District 9 is actually based on his short film called Alive in Joburg from a few years ago – the short is incredibly ambitious and it was almost inevitable someone would try to extend it into a full-length version – Why not the guy who did the short film?

Thanks (again) to regular Screen Rant reader “790″ for reminding me to set up a spoiler discussion post. While we do have a District 9 review where you can leave comments, we’ve set up this as a place where you can discuss District 9 spoilers without concerns about ruining the movie for folks who haven’t seen it yet.

If you’re posting comments here, assume that anyone in the conversation has seen the movie – if you haven’t seen the movie, I would recommend you don’t read the comments here until you have.

Short Version: With its unique story, fantastic visual effects and real-world look, District 9 is sure to be a future Sci-Fi classic.

Screen Rant reviews District 9

District 9 is probably not what you’re expecting.

The trailers and clips that you may have seen so far don’t really tell you what the movie is about – and that’s a good thing.

A bunch of new clips have recently appeared online for the two movies that will effectively cap off the summer of 2009: District 9 and Inglourious Basterds. Both are highly-anticipated movies around these parts, and thankfully we won’t have to wait much longer before they get released in theaters.

Coming Soon got a chance to sit down twice with District 9 director, Neill Blomkamp, both before (at Comic-Con) and after they had a chance to see the movie. We have some of the pre-interview for you here which therefore doesn’t contain anything we haven’t seen in the trailers, posters or images (i.e. there’s no real spoilers).

District 9 represents Blomkamp’s first ever full-length feature film directing gig (and the first he’s ever written). It is based on his first short film from 2005 called Alive in Joburg. Set in South Africa, the film is about a race of alien creatures who are forced by humans to live in slum-like conditions on Earth, but help in a “sympathetic government agent.”

Comic-Con seems like old news (even though it only ended a week ago), but as a final note we thought we’d show you what you guys ended up picking as the hottest things to come out of the 4 day event. There was certainly a lot of competition for fan attention, but as usual there are always a few things that end up grabbing the limelight.

We ran a poll asking you to pick what you thought were the three hottest things to come out of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Now the total numbers add up to more than 100% because with so much to choose from we allowed people to pick their top 3 items.

Results after the jump.

A select few people and some who were lucky enough to win tickets had a chance to screen the film, District 9 on Thursday night. I was not one of them.

District 9 has been something I’ve been following closely for a while now, since tidbits of information about it started appearing online about the movie whose creative team was originally supposed to bring us the Halo film adaptation of the super-successful video game franchise.

As the second segment of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s panel (the first segment being a panel on Legion), we were introduced to the amazing Peter Jackson who is making his first ever appearance at Comic-Con.

The marketing machine is now running on full steam for the upcoming Peter Jackson-Neill Blomkamp sci-fi film, District 9, as we near the release of the sci-fi doc-style film. The first full length (original and uncensored) trailers debuted back in May alongside X-Men Origins: Wolverine and since then we’ve been subject to a multitude of viral marketing for the movie.

Today, the brand new trailer for District 9 that will be in theaters this weekend attached to Sacha Baren Cohen’s Bruno has come online as well as the newest poster that was made available earlier this week.

Wow, Comic-Con 2009 is already less than three weeks away. Seems like only a couple of months ago since we were there. Last year was a ton of work but also a blast (click here for our wrap up of the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con), and this year we’ll be providing even more extensive coverage for you with additional staff to cover the event.

One movie I’ve been looking forward to this summer ever since we first started getting info on it, is District 9, the sci-fi documentary-style film by the folks who were supposed to make the Halo film adaptation.

Today we have for you another sample of the viral marketing for the Neill Blomkamp-directed movie, this one in the form of a breaking news video report. This comes just two weeks after Screen Rant reported on some viral posters and a neat short film – Expect plenty more.

The high-level warning cautions the people of Johannesburg, South Africa to stay home as some of the so-called “violent and unpredictable” extra-terrestrial residents of the cordoned off zone have escaped.

We’ve got some cool new viral posters for District 9, the sci-fi-meets-reality-tv film about aliens living in a refugee camp in Johannesburg, South Africa. If you’ve seen the District 9 teaser trailer, then you’re already familiar with the film’s documentary-style format (a la Cloverfield) mixed with crazy sci-fi F/X. The new viral posters play up on the “real world” angle of the film quite nicely.

District 9 is being produced by Peter Jackson (Lord of The Rings) and directed by Neill Blomkamp, who up until now has been known for almost directing the Halo movie. District 9 is based on Blomkamp’s short film “Alive in Joberg”, which Screen Rant is proud to present for your viewing pleasure.

News has been released that Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson will make his first ever appearance at Comic-Con International this year, doing so to promote his upcoming mysterious sci-fi film District 9 that he is producing. Despite having many of his films hyped at the convention in years gone past, this is the first time he will be there in person. When his huge blockbuster remake of King Kong was being promoted at the Convention, Jackson was holed up in the editing room for the movie back in New Zealand. Even when the epic Lord of the Rings movies were being promoted there, Jackson was nowhere to be seen.

Why can’t we all just get along?

It seems that the marketing is really gearing up for the upcoming Peter Jackson-Neill Blomkamp sci-fi film, District 9. We finally saw a full length trailer that debuted last week online and alongside X-Men Origins: Wolverine in theaters, as well as some more viral marketing with an updated version of that trailer.

If you saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine or have been keeping up with Screen Rant, you probably had a chance to view the very cool and unique trailer for the upcoming documentary-style sci-fi film, District 9, which hit the internet just short of a week ago.

If you haven’t, you definitely should – This is something you may want to look out for.

District 9 is the super-secret sci-fi project that director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson have been working on since the Halo movie they were supposed to make was thrown on the back-burner.

District 9 is the upcoming and highly-secretive Neill Blomkamp-directed sci-fi film, produced by Peter Jackson. While we haven’t seen much news on the upcoming film, Screen Rant reported at the beginning of April what the movie is all about and it sounded very interesting to say the least. Now, we finally have the official trailer for District 9 and it’s really damn cool.

The following is a brief description of the setting of the film:

As any of you avid Peter Jackson fans out there will know, Peter’s had his eye on a newcomer called Neill Blomkamp for a couple of years now – to the point where he was once the frontrunner to helm the promised Halo movie. What has he directed before, you ask? Well, nothing actually – at least not on the full-length feature film front. He’s directed some short films (including the series of Halo shorts known as Landfall), but apart from that he hasn’t done anything cinematic.

Well, word has been floating around for over a year now of a mysterious new sci-fi alien film entitled District 9 which will be produced by Peter Jackson himself. Who’s directing it? That’s right, you guessed it… Neill Blomkamp. Not much was known about this project when it was first announced (via the viral marketing that was presented at Comic Con last year), but at ShoWest recently, Sony revealed some footage for it.