A District 9 sequel could be on the way
Neill Blomkamp, the director of the acclaimed sci-fi film District 9, has revealed that a sequel is in the works. If you are struggling to remember the film, it’s because it came out in 2009, and a second was never made despite widespread calls for it.
Set in 1982, the film is set up almost like a documentary that follows a government worker’s relocation of a foreign alien species. However, when a bio-weapon infects said officer (Sharlto Copley), he begins to mutate into one of the aliens he loathes so much. After a fight to regain the alien technology, who are treated as second-class citizens, Copley’s character helps his alien companions return to their ship.
But the film was left on a cliffhanger, leaving fans to speculate whether the escaped aliens would return with a vengeance, return to rescue their kind, or even return at all.
A decade later, Neill Blomkamp has spoken to IGN about the long-awaited sequel:
“That script [for District 10] continues to be written. It’s looking good. It took a decade to figure out, to come up with a reason why to make that film as opposed to just make a sequel.
“There was a topic in American history that the second I realized that that fit into the world of District 9, it felt like an awesome way to do a sequel. So yeah, it continues to be developed, and it’s getting a lot closer.”
It could be assumed that said topic would be race relations in South African; as District 9’s depiction of the discrimination against the film’s alien species intentionally mirrored that of South African apartheid. Despite receiving four Academy Award nominations, not all the response to the first film was positive.
Film critic Alexandra Heller Nicholas said the film was problematic because the main character is a white man, which she says “disempowers the film’s allegory to apartheid that comments on the corruption of the South African government”.
