We don’t know very much about Chappie, Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi follow-up to the instant classic District 9 and the somewhat underwhelming Elysium, but Comic-Con is giving us our first look at the movie with an intriguing poster. Collider provided the images, which you can check out below, shooting the dimly lit poster from multiple angles so as to give us the best possible idea of what it looks like.
Chappie centers on a robot with artificial intelligence (played by Sharlto Copley) who is kidnapped by two gangsters. Producer Simon Kinberg has tantalizingly referred to it as “the most provocative studio movie you’ll likely ever see,” though we won’t find out whether that’s actually the case for a little while. The poster is still fascinating, depicting the titular robot drawing a cartoon of his adopted family (doesn’t look like his father is a very nurturing figure though, judging by that assault rifle).
There’s a dark comedy to the poster that suggests Chappie will be a different kind of animal than either District 9 or Elysium. With its cast, which includes Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver and Die Antwoord frontpeople Ninja and Yolandi Visser, it should be an interesting ride, and I’m looking forward to finding out more about it (though it doesn’t look like there’s any sort of Comic-Con panel for the pic, unfortunately, just this poster).
Blomkamp is a director with a lot of big ideas, and the magnificence of District 9 showed us that he has the ability to express them in a creative and distinctive manner as well. Chappie, then, seems like one of those ideas just nutty and outside the box to work with him at the helm. Hopefully the director will have learned from Elysium‘s mixed reception to avoid shifting gears from social commentary into Call of Duty at the mid-way mark.
Chappie opens on March 27th, 2015.
