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Peter Jackson on District 9
By Fred Topel | Image property of Sony Pictures
District 9
Jackson Visits District 9
“As some of you probably know, we originally were making an adaptation of the Halo video game and I was developing that with Mary Parent at Universal,” Jackson explained. “She was the executive who with worked with on King Kong and King Kong was in post production and we talked about moving on into doing Halo. I was directing Lovely Bones as my next project, so I was a big Halo fan and I talked about idea of producing Halo, but finding a new director, somebody who hadn't necessarily directed a feature before, but would bring a whole new exciting vision to a Halo feature film. Mary called up one day and said that she heard an interesting filmmaker that we should take a look at and she sent a DVD down to us with Neill's short movies. we really loved them and Mary got Neill on a plane and the two of them came down to New Zealand pretty quickly.”
Unfortunately, Halo didn’t pan out but Jackson still wanted to see what Blomkamp could do with a movie. “Neill had been working with a design team on Halo for a long time and we were really thrilled with the results and so we thought, ‘Well, let's make a film with Neill. There's no reason why Halo falling over has to mean that we don't get to make a film with Neill. Let's just do an original movie, something low-budget that we can finance independently so we don't have to go through the studio experience that we just had.’ That's how District 9 was born. Neill had made a short movie called Alive in Joburg, which he had done a couple of years earlier and that one was very much the genesis of the idea behind District 9.”
District 9 falls very much in line with Jackson’s aesthetic: a fantastical situation full of gory action and visual effects, but with something to say too. “Things that I like about it personally, I like Neill's approach to the story very much, which is certainly different to how I would have done it. Neill's certainly the author of the very documentary-kind of realism, and I think it's also interesting the South African setting because, Neill should talk about this really, but it was really important to Neill that it has a vibe of South Africa about it and that the decisions that the characters make, that Sharlto [Copley]'s character makes is based on that particular country and that town. He's also a complex character, he's an interesting character, I find. Wikus is a flawed individual and we don't have the incredible redeeming moment when he becomes a hero. He doesn't see the error of his ways and open an orphanage for orphan alien children. He's complicated and conflicted and I think that's interesting and the film for me. It was an unusual experience because Neill wanted the film to be based on improvisational a lot. I'm used to coming from a world where everything is scripted and everything is written and we figure it all out and the actors deliver the dialogue and we obviously do variations on that, but we basically plan it all. Neill wanted very much a spontaneous documentary feel and we structured the story, we knew what the scenes had to achieve, but of course, it's difficult. Improvisation is a rare skill. There's very few actors that can do it. Often people just get tongue tied and they don't know how to improvise and Neill kept saying to us at the beginning of the process that he had this friend of his in South Africa, Sharlto, who he thought would be very terrific in the lead role and ultimately Neill went to South African and shot a test, which he showed us and that really sold us on the idea of Sharlto playing that character.”
Marketing has generated interest in District 9 amidst a summer full of recognizable properties. Still, even with “Humans only” bus stops, District 9 will be a surprise to audiences.
“We were busy developing District 9 and it was a two-year process and I was doing The Lovely Bones at the time. While I was making that movie, Neill went to South Africa, he shot his film, came back to New Zealand, did some more shooting in New Zealand, some of the spaceship interiors we shot there, Sharlto came down, he obviously shot in South Africa came to New Zealand, did all the post production and we didn't make any effort to promote the film. We just did it quietly and so when the movie first starting coming out and the viral campaign began and the first teaser came out, I think there was a really nice sense of surprise, which is fun. I think it's always neat when it happens when it was a film that wasn't really in anybody's mind and suddenly you've got a trailer and everyone is going, ‘What the hell is this thing?’ And there was a lovely sense of surprise about it, which doesn't happen very much in the film industry because everyone seems to be so aware of what's happening. Somehow we'd fallen through the cracks a little bit, which I think it's made it a fun process.”
District 9 opens to theaters on August 14th.
For the trailers, posters, clips and more movie info, go to the District 9 Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of Sony Pictures
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