‘District 9’ star still sounds hopeful about the long-gestating sequel

Sharlto Copley, who stars in the survival thriller Beast, is giving a hopeful-sounding update about the long-awaited sequel to District 9, the sci-fi movie from 2009 that launched his career.

For years now, director Neill Blomkamp and Copley have asserted they would love to make a follow-up film, District 10. When asked by ComicBook whether the pair still talk about the prospective movie, Copley said, “we do.”

“I mean, we came so close to doing it. So hopefully, after his next movie, maybe we’ll do it then,” the actor added.

Copley actually gave a rather similar update Wednesday, as well, in an interview with entertainment journalist Erik Davis, as We Got This Covered previously reported. In that interview, Copley got even more specific in terms of what he guessed would be the timeline of when the film would possibly go under production:

“We came super close and then he’s gone off to do something else but we were right there. We were kind of right there. So let’s see in a year and a half after when he gets done on the movie he’s doing now.”

Just what is Blomkamp’s next film project? Apparently, he is directing a videogame adaptation for the Sony racing series Gran Turismo, slated to hit theaters a year from now, according to an update we reported on back in June.

Back in May, Blomkamp himself indicated in an interview he was still working on the script for District 10 but that its completion was “within the near-future.”

The Elysium director also gave an update on Twitter in February 2021 that he would be penning the script alongside Copley and District 9 co-writer Terri Tetchell.

The Peter Jackson-produced District 9 not only put Blomkamp on the map, but Copley as well, serving as the movie debut for each talented individual. The Oscar-nominated film’s status as one of the finest science fiction movies of the new millennium is legendary. The quasi-documentary-style tale about an extra-terrestrial refugee camp located in Johannesburg, South Africa, came to the silver screen from the remnants of a failed movie adaptation of the video game Halo, according to IMDb.

Let’s hope the long-gestating District 10 can eventually come to fruition. In the meantime, you can check out Copley starring alongside Idris Elba in the survival thriller Beast, in theaters Friday.