South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp is not having a lot of luck with what is expected to be his next project. This week marks the 10th anniversary of his debut film District 9 (2009), a science-fiction thriller, filled with action and social criticism, that became an instant classic and was even nominated to 4 Oscar awards. Sadly, the hype of what was one of the most promising young directors in the entire world started to vanish with his follow up films Elysium (2013) and Chappie (2015), which although are not bad movies they can’t keep up with their predecessor.
In the search for a big hit that could blast his career to the highest level and also satisfy the legion of fans he achieved with his first movie, Blomkamp shared in early 2015 several images that showed concept art for an Alien film he might have been working on. In his dream Alien movie, a direct sequel of James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), he was bringing back Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn to reprise their roles of Ellen Ripley and Corporal Dwayne Hicks. But that project was canceled when Ridley Scott decided to continue his own franchise line that started with Prometheus (2012).
Last year, the news that Neill Blomkamp was working on a new Robocop movie, provisionally entitled RoboCop Returns, were welcome by the fans with great enthusiasm. It was planned to be a sequel of the first movie, ignoring RoboCop 2 (1990) and RoboCop 3 (1993), as well as the 2014 remake, and with a script by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, the writers of the first RoboCop (1987). Yesterday, Blomkamp posted on his official Twitter account @NeillBlomkamp that he is also out of this project. In his own words, he has been working on a mysterious original horror film which is in production right now, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the owner of the Robocop franchise, don’t want to wait to have the new movie ready.
With Neill Blomkamp out of the new Robocop project, it is unknown if the producers will still keep the idea of making the film as close as possible as the original, and aiming to an R rating; which, needless to say, is what all the fans want. And, also, this opens a new big question: What is this new horror movie Neill Blomkamp is working on? Is it going to be related to his series of science-fiction short films produced by his own company Oats Studios? Or is it a totally new and original story we still don’t know about? We will have to keep an eye on the filmmaker, waiting for more exciting news.
Off Robocop. I am shooting new horror/thriller and MGM can’t wait/ need to shoot Robocop now. Excited to watch it in theaters with other fans. N
— Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) August 15, 2019
