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Ryan Lambie Jun 7, 2017

District 9 director Neill Blomkamp is back with Oats Studios. He explains what we can expect, and how you can get involved...

From the earliest stages of his career, director Neill Blomkamp has used short films as a means of testing his ideas. The most famous example, arguably, is Alive In Joburg, a fake documentary about shunned alien visitors - a premise which formed the debut for Blomkamp's stunning feature debut, District 9.

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The success of that film led to the movies Elysium and Chappie, yet Blomkamp hasn't stopped making short films and commercials in between; there was the curious snippet of found-footage released by Wired Magazine in 2010, which depicted the discovery of a strange, porcine creature lying dead in a puddle. There was The Hire, one instalment of a series of shorts for the German car firm BMW.

Whatever you feel about the more recent works of writer-director Neill Blomkamp, it cannot be denied that District 9 is an extraordinary feature length debut. Released in 2009, this apartheid allegory saw humans oppressing aliens in fenced-off slums, and it earned four Academy Award nominations. While his other films – 2013’s Elysium, and 2015’s Chappie – never again reached those heady heights, Blomkamp has developed a plan to further his creative career in a different way, after his Alien 5 project essentially died on the vine.

The director has founded Oats Studios with a simple mission – he’s returning to the methods that gave life to District 9 in the first place. The filmmaker intends to use this studio to make a variety of shorts and release them online in the hope that one or more of them will gain enough traction with the public to warrant them being turned into feature films. This...

After filmmaker Neill Blomkamp revealed that his Alien 5 sequel was not happening anymore, many fans had wondered what the director would take on next. A few weeks ago, the filmmaker started teasing a new endeavor of his called Oats Studios on social media, which will be a series of experimental short films that will be featured on the studio's YouTube channel, and on the Steam streaming service as well. While it remains to be seen when the first films through this endeavor will be released, the director debuted a new trailer for Oats Studios: Volume 1, featuring a unique monster movie.

This trailer from Oats Studios YouTube doesn't reveal what the name of this film is, but during one of his tweets from earlier this month, the filmmaker referred to this project as Rakka, while debuting the first 15-second teaser. No plot details were given for this first short film, or...

Neill Blomkamp broke into the scene with shorts like Landfall and Alive in Joburg, a gritty sci-fi documentary that became the basis for his feature film debut and biggest hit to date, District 9. After making the modestly-to-poorly received sci-fi films Elysium and Chappie, Blomkamp may be stepping away from trying to live up to early praise of […]

The post Neill Blomkamp Embarks on Experimental Film Project Oats Studios; Watch the Trailer appeared first on /Film.

Neill Blomkamp has teamed up with the new short film company Oats Studios to release a series of experimental shorts, the first trailer for which looks as crazy and epic as anything you’d expect from the “District 9” and “Elysium” director. The teaser trailer for Oats Studios’ “Volume 1” depicts a world where humanity is enslaved by aliens who “came here to exterminate us,” a narrator explains. The aliens themselves look reptilian, but walk on two feet and shoot weapons. Other footage in the trailer appears to come from separate short films, one of which depicts U.S. army forces fighting in the jungle.

Read More: ‘District 9’ Director Neill Blomkamp to Release Experimental Short Films On Gaming Site Steam

Oats Studios will stream the short films via the online gaming platform Steam. Blomkamp has been dropping hints regarding the new venture for the past year on Twitter, revealing that...

Author: Zehra Phelan

District 9 and Chappie director, Neill Blomkamp has unleashed a teaser for his upcoming shorts series Oats Volume 1 from his own venture which looks, quite frankly, so pretty damn awesome these series of shorts could start a new wave of interest across wider audiences.

Related: Ridley Scott says Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 is dead.

The short films are planned for a streaming only release on PC game distribution service, Steam and will come at a price. Blomkamp’s new project Oats Studios is behind the thrilling new set of shorts which was created to deliver experimental short films. Oats Studios will actively encourage budding filmmakers to make shorts of their own, with assets from Volume 1 – 3D models, footage, music and so on – planned to appear on Steam for “a nominal price.”

The teaser is crammed full with a variety of alien’s and zombie type beings, Beginning...

The last we heard of Neill Blomkamp, things weren’t going well for the South African director. His latest feature, Chappie, was the critical and financial hot people expected, and his proposed Alien 5 was canned as fast as it was green lit in favour of Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant. But you can’t keep a good director down, but his latest project is one I don’t think any one saw coming. Having made his name with short films like Alive in Joburg (the inspiration for District 9) and the Halo short Landfall, Blomkamp is heading back to that medium, but with a twist: this new series of experimental shorts, coming from the newly formed Oats Studios, will be going straight to online gaming platform Steam. Simply titled Oats: Volume 1, the first trailer for the project has come online, chock full of the usual fantastic visuals and unique concepts from the modern Sci-Fi master,...

“District 9” director Neill Blomkamp’s Oats Studios will experiment with selling short films on gaming website Stream as a way to develop feature film ideas. Many shorts will also be available on the Oats Studios YouTube channel, but a few will be exclusive for purchase as a way to see if the ecosystem works for film, Blomkamp said.

Read More: ‘Kill Switch’ Teaser Trailer: Dan Stevens Stars in Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Thriller — Watch

If I sold experimental short films on @steam_games as tests for potential full feature films, would people watch them?

— NΞill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) April 9, 2017

The director, also known for “Elysium” and “Chappie,” floated the idea on twitter: “If I sold experimental short films on [Steam Games] as tests for potential full feature films, would people watch them?” He added that concept art, 3-D assets, and Maya scene files would be available for download through Steam. “I want to have...

Ryan Lambie Jan 20, 2017

It could have been the first blockbuster videogame adaptation, but instead, it fell apart. Ryan looks at the Halo movie that never was...

From Super Mario Bros in the 90s and on to the recent Assassin’s Creed, it’s fair to say that movies adapted from videogames seldom fare well. But there’s one movie, now sadly lost to history, that might just have bucked that trend: Neill Blomkamp’s Halo.

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In 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved was the game that helped launch Microsoft’s first ever console, the Xbox. A first-person shooter with an absorbing sci-fi plot and a cool character at its core - the anonymous, armoured super-soldier, Master Chief - Halo...

Argentine director Federico Heller's science fiction short film "Uncanny Valley" is being shopped around as a potential feature.

"Independence Day: Resurgence" scribe Carter Blanchard has hopped onboard the project. Following various private screenings with hopes to build interest among investors, the short has now debuted online for the public.

Set in a near-future dystopia, it follows the impoverished residents of a slum plagued by virtual reality addicts who earn a meager living playing violent games while serving as the workforce for real world wars.

The project is said to have multimedia aspects - a series of innovative Vr experiences made available via virtual reality platforms. The film also hopes to follow in the footsteps of Neill Blomkamp's "Alive in Joburg" short film which he used to turn into the feature "District 9".

Check out the "Uncanny Valley" short film below:

Source: Deadline...

Following a path similar to Alive in Joburg, the short film by Neill Blomkamp’s that ultimately gave rise to District 9, Argentine director Federico Heller’s trippy science fiction short Uncanny Valley is being shopped around as a feature film with multimedia aspects, with Independence Day: Resurgence scribe Carter Blanchard developing the feature take to show to investors. After a series of private screenings thrown in Los Angeles over the last week by the project's…...

Look at this: From the writer/director of District 9. Wickus. Ripley. Slumdog. Die Antwoord. Wolverine with a mullet. Ed-209 meeRobocop 2. How Is This Movie Not Going To Be Amazing?

My mom saw a TV spot for Chappie and asked me what I knew about it. I told her to think of it as Short Circuit for adults. In reality that’s not too far off, but director Neill Blomkamp’s three feature films have all been a sum of their parts from genre films of the past. He’s claimed James Cameron’s Aliens as his favorite film, and is close with Peter Jackson who also knows a lot about splatter gore and epic scale. Chappie has major influence from the first two Robocop films, both Short Circuit films, and The Fifth Element among others. I remember right after seeing District 9 that Blomkamp was going to be the successor to Paul Verhoeven,...

From low-budget dystopias to grungy horror, here are 12 shorts that became films such as Evil Dead, Twelve Monkeys and The Babadook.

The best story ideas are often the simple and pure ones. It's little wonder, then, that so many filmmakers and storytellers start by making short films - after all, if you can tell a good story in just a few minutes, you might be talented enough to make a feature.

Cinema history is full of stories about young filmmakers getting their start by making low-budget shorts. James Cameron famously made Xenogenesis, a sci-fi short which contained lots of things that would appear in his later feature films: a giant robot with big tank tracks, a cyborg, and a heroine at the helm of a hard-hitting mecha.

The short films below vary wildly, from two-minute chillers to 30-minute post-apocalyptic science fiction, but each of them are watchable for their own reasons,...

Everybody has to start somewhere.

The best and most successful Hollywood directors might find themselves marshalling $200 million epics, but in their formative years big budgets weren't at their disposal and they had to make do only with a good idea and the drive to make it happen. Many filmmakers use shorts to test-run ideas and explore themes they'd circle back to down the line.

From Christopher Nolan to Steven Spielberg, we look at nine short films that helped kick-start careers behind the camera.

1. Christopher Nolan - Doodlebug (1997)

Even before he hit it big, Interstellar director Christopher Nolan was distorting reality with his film work.

Doodlebug - led by Nolan's Following star Jeremy Theobald - played out an intriguing narrative loop over a brisk three minutes as a man chased a 'bug' around his flat with a shoe. A year after he made this film, Nolan took his feature debut Following...

District 9 filmmaker Neill Blomkamp is keeping the details surrounding his new film Chappie pretty close to the vest. All we really know so far is that Die Antwoord is involved, and that it’s basically a comedy about a ridiculous robot. The filmmaker has offered up one more piece of the puzzle this week, revealing that his short film Tetra Vaal served as a key inspiration for the new feature. Blomkamp offered up this hint in a recent Den of Geek interview, saying that Chappie is “basically based on Tetra Vaal.” So, what is Tetra Vaal? It’s a short Blomkamp made before Alive in Joburg (which was the inspiration for District 9) that looks like a promo video for a line of robotic cops to police third world countries. Like Blomkamp’s other...

Read More...

The Chappie trailer gave us a first look at the new film from the director of District 9 and Elysium. But what's beneath its 80s nostalgia.

From his earliest, eye-catching short films, South African director Neill Blomkamp showed off a style that already seemed fully-formed. As much inspired by manga and videogames as the more typical touchstones of science fiction cinema, Blomkamp's films are set in a recognisably grubby future, where the high-tech meets the tatty malaise of cities worn down through decades of use.

Those sensational short films, among them Alive In Joburg, Yellow and Tetra Vaal, led to a stalled Halo feature film project. This in turn led to his first feature, the surprise hit District 9 - based on Alive In Joburg - and then Elysium, the 2013 action film starring Matt Damon.

In Chappie, due out next spring, Blomkamp again draws on one of his early shorts...

The world was impressed with District 9 – Neil Blomkamp’s feature-length directorial debut. His follow-up film, Elysium, was not as impressive. One of the common denominators in those two movies is Sharlto Copley – an actor who began his career in a Blomkamp short film (Alive in Joburg), and will continue it in Blomkamp’s next film as writer-director, Chappie.

Co-written with fellow District 9 scribe, Terri Tatchell, the sci-fi film is based on another Blomkamp short – Tetra Vaal – and features Yolandi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Brandon Auret and Ninja among its supporting cast. Chappie is a robot, stolen by two local criminals who plan to use his artificial intelligence capabilities for their own questionable purposes. So far, so gripping – but it is the methods employed by Blomkamp for this film that has got Sharlto Copley talking to Coming Soon. Copley will not simply voice the character – he is being animated:...

Has Hollywood found the next Neill Blomkamp? Like the South African director, whose short Alive In Joburg caught the eye back in 2006, Dan Trachtenberg made a big splash with Portal: No Escape, a short based on the dimensionally-abstract computer game. Now he’s getting a shot at a feature length project. It’s called Valencia and it’ll be the work of J. J. Abrams’ Bad Robot marque for Paramount’s indie(st) arm, Insurge.With a modest $5m budget, Trachtenberg will tackle a scenario in which a teenage girl awakes in a cellar after a car crash to discover from a strange caretaker that society has been devastated by nuclear attack. We’re assuming it’s a psychological thriller that will tackle some of the same themes of captivity and escape as that Portal short. The script is the work of Dan Casey, who reshaped an earlier draft by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken.

This is a special edition of Short Starts, where we look at the past year of disappointing feature debuts from filmmakers who previously wowed us with their short films. Short films can be good calling cards, but they aren’t always the best proof that a filmmaker has the skills to immediately jump into a feature. Especially a big Hollywood production. In recent years, thanks to the combination of the Internet, social media and cheaper tools for making movies on a personal computer, we’ve seen some awesome short films go viral and then get the attention of studio execs and big time producers. The filmmakers, in only a few minutes of screen time, display a lot of talent and imagination and, most importantly, promise. But they’re often handed properties that are too much to handle even for experienced directors, as we saw with Neill Blomkamp’s assignment of Halo as a feature debut. Fortunately...

The South African's stylish movie parable, starring Matt Damon a futuristic working-class hero, is sci-fi with a social conscience

• Matt Damon interviewed for Elysium

• Elysium on high at Us box office

• Trailer review: Elysium

Neill Blomkamp has a vision of 2154, and it's not good news. His prognosis finds Earth in a sorry state: the whole world has become the third world, with the extremely wealthy 1% abandoning our ravaged planet for Elysium, a luxurious space station. Earth is a giant slum, a totalitarian nightmare in which citizens live like rats with Elysium glowing above them, like "Bel Air in space," says Blomkamp.

To underline the yawning chasm between the haves and have-nots of his future dystopia, Blomkamp decided that the only contemporary location that could accurately convey the grimness of life on Earth in the 22nd century was the world's second-biggest garbage dump, in Mexico City. But when he and his...

Opening with a familiar swoop over the dirty, swarming city of Los Angeles, teeming with life under the harsh sun, its overpopulation evident in the ramshackle nature of the buildings placed on top of buildings with careless abandon. We are in the year 2154 but little, it appears, has changed. There is an air of neglect in this tumbledown city on the precipice of collapse. Two young orphaned children run beneath the sweltering sun, scrambling playfully through the dangerous ruin of their homeland, stopping only to look to the sky, and to the promised land of Elysium.

Blomkamp’s ability to create a world parallel to our own was a key factor in the success of Alive in Joburg and then District 9. In this film the social composition under examination is the distancing of class, with the rich and powerful living high up in the beautifully realised Stanford Torus of...

Four year ago, Neill Blomkamp directed the surprise hit District 9, a speculative sci-fi film about the integration of aliens into human culture. Based in his home country of South Africa, District 9 was embraced by critics and audiences, earning three somewhat expected technical Academy Award nomination and a completely unexpected Best Picture nod. However, before the film was released anywhere, Blomkamp recorded his commentary on the film, giving a unique insight into its production with no knowledge of its eventual success. At the time of recording, Blomkamp had been present to show the film in public once, at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Com, and he was feeling pretty good about the movie based on the audience reaction. At least this time, the Comic-Con love translated into box office success and critical acclaim. District 9 (2009) Commentator: Neill Blomkamp (writer and director) 1. Sharlto Copley and Blomkamp were high school friends in Johannesburg, South...

Something I.ve never asked for in life is a movie trailer that takes three minutes and 44 seconds to watch - and yet that.s exactly what Sony Pictures has just released to promote Neill Blomkamp.s upcoming sci-fi action flick Elysium. It.s hardly a surprise, as nearly every Elysium trailer has pushed beyond the average 2:30 mark, but this is pretty ridiculous. I.m one of the people that cannot wait for this movie to be released, yet I.m getting more and more exasperated by the amount of promotional materials that are being released. Though it doesn.t necessarily prove my point, the above extended trailer is morethan half as long as Alive in Joburg, the 2005 short Blomkamp directed that ended up becoming the source material for his breakout hit District 9. Again, I can.t wait for Elysium, so I.ll save all my naysaying for...

After the ambitious Halo film adaptation was canned during pre-production, would-be director Neill Blomkamp and executive producer Peter Jackson – who enlisted him for Halo – chose to instead spend their efforts on making a full-length feature based on his own short film Alive in Joburg. That movie was District 9 and it made waves among Hollywood’s top brass, critics and fans alike.

After the success of his feature debut and the mess that was Halo, Blomkamp has little interest in adapting well-known, established properties like Star wars, and instead moved towards another original project in Elysium as his next big project. The South Africa-born filmmaker has several ideas for his next projects but District 10 is still in the ...

Click to continue reading Neill Blomkamp Turned Down ‘Star Wars’; Has Treatment For ‘District 10′...

It's not too much to say that Sharlto Copley owes his entire acting career to writer/director Neill Blomkamp. The South African star had no aspirations of becoming an actor before the filmmaker put him in his 2006 short film Alive in Joburg and then made him the lead of 2009's District 9. Since his amazing debut, the actor has worked on a couple other projects, including Joe Carnahan's A-Team and the upcoming sci-fi thriller Europa Report, but this summer will once again be uniting with Blomkamp for Elysium. And their partnership won't be ending there. Entertainment Weekly has learned that Blomkamp and Copley will once again team on Chappie, the director's third feature effort. Unlike their previous collaborations, this new film will apparently be much lighter, with the star describing it as "a science-fiction comedy." Plot details about the film are being kept under wraps at the moment, but...

We all start somewhere. It takes a lot of practice and study to become competent at anything. This is especially true of filmmaking. You might look at Nolan or Spielberg as masters of their craft, they weren’t always so. While many directors come from different backgrounds, education and intelligence, many of the greats have a body of short films they made that predates any sort of exposure they had.

Following up on how to direct your first short film, here is a look at some of the competition in your quest to take over the film world. What did master filmmaker’s earliest works look like? What kinds of films were they putting together in their formative years? Well, allow me to show you.

While planning a short film, it is important to do spades and spades of research. So why not take a walk through history and see...

Today’s film is the 2006 short Alive in Joburg. The short is directed by South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, who also worked on the visual effects for the film, and stars Sharlto Copley. Blomkamp and Copley reunited again for the former’s feature film debut, 2009′s sleeper hit District 9. Blomkamp is currently working on Baja Dunes, a science fiction movie formerly titled Elysium, which is set for release in 2013. Copley has rejoined him as a supporting player in the project, along with working on Spike Lee’s Oldboy, the fantasy tale Maleficent and the science fiction feature Europa.

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Today’s film is the 2006 short Alive in Joburg. The short is directed by South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, who also worked on the visual effects for the film, and stars Sharlto Copley. Blomkamp and Copley reunited again for the former’s feature film debut, 2009′s sleeper hit District 9. Blomkamp is currently working on Baja Dunes, a science fiction movie formerly titled Elysium, which is set for release in 2013. Copley has rejoined him as a supporting player in the project, along with working on Spike Lee’s Oldboy, the fantasy tale Maleficent and the science fiction feature Europa.

Fox has hired Wes Ball to direct The Maze Runner, the first of a trilogy of dystopian novels by James Dashner. Based on the strength of his short film, Ruin (embedded below), which Fox purchased in July and will be expanding to feature length as well, Ball will make his directorial debut with presumably wide distribution, in a similar fashion to Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 based on his short film Alive In Joburg—let’s hope Ruin and The Maze Runner are equally as strong!

According to Deadline, Gotham Group will be producing The Maze Runner with Peter Kang and Daria Cercek overseeing at the studio. Noah Oppenheim wrote the first draft of the script.

The book’s synopsis:

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open,...

Deadline reports that the little-known company Wayfare Entertainment, responsible for the upcoming Sharlto Copley sci-fi thriller Europa, is financing and producing a feature length film adaptation of Matt Westrup's short film The Gate (which Venkman wrote about here last year).

The short has been compared to Alive in Joburg, Neill Blomkamp's mini-movie that spurred the Academy Award-nominated District 9. I can definitely see why the two are mentioned in the same breath, as The Gate works as a possible "what if" scenario involving misuse of pharmaceutical drugs, while Joburg was an allegory for apartheid in South Africa. Wayfare is still searching for a screenwriter for The Gate, and director Westrup is returning behind the camera for the feature.

"Our plan for The Gate was to always expand and build upon the world that I conceived for the 11 minute short,” Westrup said. “Wayfare Entertainment shares our vision in taking those themes and ideas,...

Any expectations created by comparisons to Alive in Joburg — a piece Neill Blomkamp later expanded into a little film entitled District 9 — notwithstanding, I think The Gate could lead to something of real value. Deadline has news of the short-turned-feature, which its original director, Matt Westrup, will make his official debut on; Wayfare Entertainment are backing the picture, and a screenwriter is being sought to balloon the work into a film.

The Gate‘s focus is twofold: a series of genetic mutants who attack London citizens, and the actions of a shady pharmaceutical company that engaged in experiments which led to their creation. It’s no surprise, then, that an 8-minute affair with such big ambitions was something Westrup always intended to “expand and build upon” with more time and a bigger budget; with both of those at his disposal, the helmer hopes to make The Gate “a sci-fi thriller...

No, we're not talking about the long talked about remake of the cool monster flick The Gate. What we have here is a completely different beast. Read on for the latest creature feature getting locked and loaded.

According to Deadline, Wayfare Entertainment has acquired the rights to produce and finance a feature-length version of the short thriller The Gate from its director Matt Westrup and producer Spencer Friend. Westrup will direct the feature version, while Friend will produce with Wayfare’s Browning and Sarah Shepard. They will soon hire a screenwriter to expand the film to feature length. The Gate is a cool mutant tale that was named one of Viewfinder’s 10 best short films of 2011 and has drawn comparisons to Alive in Joburg, the short that was expanded into District 9.

“Our plan for The Gate was to always expand and build upon the world that I conceived for the 11-minute short,...

Exclusive: Wayfare Entertainment has acquired the rights to produce and finance a feature-length version of the short thriller The Gate from its director Matt Westrup and producer Spencer Friend. Westrup will direct the feature version, while Friend will produce with Wayfare’s Browning and Sarah Shepard. Michael Maher will be exec producer. They will soon hire a screenwriter to expand the film to feature length. The Gate is a cool mutant tale that was named one of Viewfinder’s 10 best short films of 2011 and has drawn comparisons to Alive In Joburg, the short that was expanded into District 9. “Our plan for The Gate was to always expand and build upon the world that I conceived for the 11 minute short,” Westrup said. “Wayfare Entertainment shares our vision in taking those themes and ideas, and adapting them into a sci-fi thriller that is driven by a grounded, sophisticated plot and intriguing character arcs.

The rise and fall of the Halo movie has become legend in Hollywood. One of the biggest video game franchises ever failing to launch a movie at the peak of its popularity due to creative differences and stubborn greed. A new article for Wired fills in a few details and examines the “culture clash” between the tech/gaming world at Microsoft and the egos of Hollywood, and how it led to the movie’s permanent place in Development Hell history. The piece, from Jamie Russell’s book Generation Xbox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood, includes quotes from insiders close the deal and director Neill Blomkamp (District 9), who speaks candidly about how the production was “a clusterf*ck from day one.” Here is what happened to Halo:

In February 2005, Mircosoft paid screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine) $1 million for a script, beginning the company’s first (and only) foray into movies.

There are few franchises in recent memory that were announced with as much excitement only to collapse as spectacularly as the proposed video game movie "Halo." Trumpeted with great fanfare in 2005, the expensive project was seen as the next big blockbuster, with the promise of a built-in, worldwide fanbase, and despite the cost, two major studios teamed up to make it happen. But as these things go, the ink was barely dry on the deal before things went south, development stalled, contracts tried to be renegotiated and eventually, the whole thing sputtered out in a rather ugly mess.

Today, Wired brings an excerpt from the upcoming book "Generation Xbox: How Videogames Invaded Hollywood" detailing the rise and fall of "Halo." Here are five things about the project from beginning to end:

1. The movie pitch was one of the most sensational in recent memory.

It's hard to get the attention of movie studio executives,...

Our last news item on the Halo movie, from October of 2010, had — despite countless prior behind-the-scenes troubles — a real air of optimism to it. DreamWorks was stepping in! Stuart Beattie had sort of written a screenplay! Microsoft thought they found the right people! This is the last franchise that needs any kind of jumpstart, but it was, nevertheless, good news for anyone who wanted to see Master Chief triumph over the Covenant on their ocal movie theater screen.

And that didn’t go anywhere. While it’s likely that someone, somewhere in Hollywood is still trying to get Halo into motion, this is a project that, for all intents and purposes, is dead. I always knew budget was a problem — anyone could tell you that — but to simply leave the property lying there? It’s kind of baffling.

A new article in Wired has filled in the blanks — and, boy,...

It’s sci-fi, and it stars Sharlto Copley. But what else do we know about the upcoming movie, The Europa Report…?

Having already starred in Neill Blomkamp’s short film Alive In Joburg, the director's debut feature District 9 and his forthcoming Elysium, actor Sharlto Copley’s surely one of the finest in sci-fi. And we now know that Copley will also star in another sci-fi movie, directed by Ecuadorian director Sebastián Cordero.

It’s called The Europa Report, and until recently, little was known about it. Over the weekend, though, a few intriguing details began to emerge. The first was an image printed in Entertainment Weekly, which showed Copley in a space suit and framed by the amber glow of Jupiter.

Shortly after, a viral website emerged, which appears to show footage from inside a spaceship. The Europa Report, it seems, is about a mission to Jupiter’s moon,...

Dear Hollywood,

If you haven't seen Aaron Sims awesome short film Archetype, then I'm sure you're familiar with his visual work.

Rise of The Planet of The Apes, War of The Worlds, Green Lantern, Clash of The Titans, War Horse, Green Lantern, Men In Black, Constantine, A.I., I Am Legend, Transformers 3, The Incredible Hulk, 30 Days of Night, It, and the list goes on as he nears completion in working with The Amazing Spiderman.

Along with his talented production company (The Aaron Sims Company), Sims has helped bring some of the biggest directors of this era some of the most creative character designs in cinema. No offense to Louis Leterrier but the only part I can effectively remember from Clash of The Titans was the Kraken scene just out of the sheer awesome use of scale and design. His work on Caesar in Rise of The Planet of The Apes left...

From fast-paced sci-fi to sneezing pandas, here are 10 short films that are currently being developed into big-screen features...

Much has been said, in recent years, about Hollywood’s love of sequels, remakes, and adaptations of outlandish properties, such as this year’s Battleship. Following the success of Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, adapted from the director’s own short, Alive In Joburg, producers have been keeping a closer eye on the work of lesser-known filmmakers. And over the past 18 months or so, a number of other short films have caught the eye of various film producers, and currently have a feature-length adaptation in the works.

Whether any of the adapted versions of the films laid out below will have the impact of District 9 is anyone’s guess, but the best of them are full of stunning visuals and clever ideas - often on miniscule budgets. And as Hollywood looks...

While I’m still not entirely sold on the prospect of remaking The Evil Dead the news from Variety that Diablo Cody is being hired to revise the script warms the cockles a touch.

Truth be told, though it’s probably movie geek blasphemy, when it comes down to it I’m more of a fan of Cody’s than I am of The Evil Dead series but I’m well aware that in bringing back the original producers and star (Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell) remakers Ghost House Pictures are looking to win over the all important fan base. Releasing a statement of intent Raimi, Tapert and Campbell courted their rabid fans,

We are committed to making this movie and are inspired by the enduring popularity and enthusiasm for the ‘Evil Dead’ series…We can’t wait to scare a new generation of moviegoers using filmmaking techniques...

When Neill Blomkamp made District 9 in 2009, his lead actor was Sharlto Copley, a friend whose only previous experience acting was in Blomkamp's short film, Alive in Joburg, which ended up the inspiration for the feature. With his sophomore effort, however, Blomkamp is taking full advantage of what comes with having your first film be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. In addition to a returning Copley, Blomkamp has already signed on Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, William Fichtner, Wagner Moura and Alice Braga. But he's not done yet collecting talented actors, according to Variety. Diego Luna, best known for his performance in Y Tu Mama Tambien, is currently in talks for a role in Neill Blomkamp's Elysium. Set 100 years in the future, the film is a sci-fi tale about aliens and humans "doing battle on earth." In the movie Luna will play Julio, Damon's character's best friend. Production...

[1] You don't have to be a 16-year-old Twihard to know that paranormal teen romance is huge right now. Like, 'has its own shelf at the Barnes & Noble in the sprawling NYC Union Square store' huge. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight is the leader of the pack, obviously, but it's far from the only series out there. Hollywood is all over this trend, as you can tell by the seemingly endless supply of vampires, werewolves, etc., on or heading to screens both big [2] and small [3]. The latest book to get the Hollywood treatment is Amanda Hocking's Trylle Trilogy. Hocking announced [4] on her site yesterday that her books had been optioned for a film, to be adapted by District 9 co-writer Terri Tatchell. I haven't read Hocking's novel, but it seems to be a paranormal Ya fantasy that's not about vampires, sparkling or otherwise. So that's a start! More details after the jump.

When Neill Blomkamp made District 9, his star was Sharlto Copley, a man who had never done any acting outside of Alive in Joburg, the short film that inspired the sci-fi feature. For Blomkamp's follow-up, Elysium, however, he's going a different route. In addition to Copley, Matt Damon has been attached to the project, and now Blomkamp has signed Jodie Foster. Deadline reports that Foster has cast in the film, despite the fact that the project hasn't even been sold to studios yet. Because no details about the movie's plot have been released, it is unknown what kind of character that the actress will be playing, though it is known that Elysium will qualify as science-fiction. Foster's next film, The Beaver, which she both starred in and directed, will be released in April of this year. As a fan of Jodie Foster's work, it's really great to see her come back.

From attention-grabbing promos to thoughtful documentaries, a new crop of directors is creating innovative and daring pictures that are cheap to make, easy to share, and finding an audience as never before. Here, we speak to those responsible for some of the best

Are we in the middle of a short‑film revolution? Not long ago, if you wanted to catch short work by exciting new film-makers, you had to travel to a festival, hunt down a compilation on DVD, catch a charitable showing on TV or, if you were uncommonly lucky, before the main feature at the cinema. Now all you have to do, assuming you have internet access and a passing familiarity with video-hosting websites, is switch on your computer.

The curious thing about short films is that, regardless of audience and financial incentive, people have continued to make them with great enthusiasm. This is in part because...

It worked once before, so why not try again? This is the thinking behind writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s next sci-fi feature project, Elysium. With District 9, Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson adapted themes from the director’s short Alive in Joburg and hired long-time friend Sharlto Copley to star. Now Deadline is reporting that Blomkamp and financier Media Rights Capital have casted Copley to headline Elysium and are using a graphic novel to shop the project around to studios. No word on whether this film has anything to do with the creepy viral video Blomkamp released throught the October iPad edition of Wired Magazine, which featured an unidentifiable pig/lizard creature found dead in a roadside puddle with “18.12 Agm Heartland Pat. Pend. USA” tattooed on it’s side. Gist: Few details of Elysium’s plot have been released, but Deadline’s Nikki Finke reports it’s “a story set...

If you haven’t heard of Microsoft’s flagship franchise Halo then it’s fair to say you have some pop culture revision to catch up on. Halo is one of the most successful video game series in recent years, breaking countless sales records, spanning 5 games, two graphic novels, six bestselling novels and earning an impressive $1.7 billion just in merchandising.

The Halo movie was something fans have been crying out for throughout the last decade and all could agree it felt like the next natural step for the series.

In 2006 Microsoft entered into a deal with Fox and Universal to make the film based on the games. They quickly hired famed director Peter Jackson and partner Fran Walsh to produce the film and to direct they hired unknown (at the time) Neill Bloomkamp on the strength of his short Alive in Joburg.

A year of development later and after Fox-iversal...

The Halo movie has been in development hell for years and with no sign of it ever happening, I'm wondering why these stories get written in the first place. Even the latest update by NYMag.com starts off with some hope but ends with the probablility of things never happening. Here's the latest on Halo and exactly how we got to this point in the first place. Looks like you can thank Fox head honcho Tom Rothman for Halo never getting made: Let's back up for a complete Halo history lesson: Five years ago, when former Columbia Pictures president Peter Schlessel first championed the project, he deliberately began working outside the studio system, hoping to avoid the development psychodrama that ruins and stalls so many adaptations. He got Microsoft to pay screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later) a million dollars to fashion an original Halo script before even a single Hollywood...

The way that short films have been able to lead to feature deals with studios in the past year is rather stunning. The success of Neill Blomkamp, who went from the short Alive in Joburg to the smash success of District 9, helped pave the way for development deals for the filmmakers behind The Gift, Panic Attack and Pixels, among others. Now Ricardo de Montreuil, whose short The Raven hit the internet in April, reportedly has a deal at Universal, where he'll expand his short into a feature. Latino Review says that Mark Wahlberg is in talks to produce and star in the expanded version of The Raven, with Montreuil directing. Justin Marks, who has written a lot of scripts but counts Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li as his only produced feature credit, will write the screenplay. This is a step forward from where the project was not long...

South African actor Sharlto Copley came out of nowhere to amaze people with his performance as Wikus Van De Merwe in Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and has since gone on to land the role of Murdock in The A-Team. But did you know that before District 9 he was already hard at work writing and directing a movie of his own? Copley and partner Simon Hansen have been developing a mysterious project called Spoon for a few years now, and it sounds like it will finally be released sometime in the near future. The good folks over at Twitch [1] got their hands on the very first teaser trailer, and although it doesn't show much, the premise is intriguing. Spoon is a supernatural thriller revolving around a man with a strange medical condition who blacks out during periods of extreme stress, causing strange things to happen. It stars TV actor Darren Boyd (Saxondale,...

Prior to his breakout as an actor in District 9, Sharlto Copley was pursuing a career intended to be located behind the camera rather than in front of it. He worked behind the scenes on Alive in Joburg and District 9 (and directed himself as D9's Wikus in a brief comedy piece) and has been working on his directorial debut for some time with co-director and production partner Simon Hansen. Called Spoon, the film is either complete or approaching completion, and there is a short teaser to announce the project to the public. The teaser, via Twitch, is all-too brief, but it is wonderful for focusing on Rutger Hauer, who plays one of the film's two primary characters. Spoon is "a thriller with supernatural overtones about a man with a medical condition that causes him to black out during moments of extreme stress and leads him to make a...