Last week the inevitable rumour emerged that with Guillermo Del Toro leaving The Hobbit, Neill Blomkamp was being lined up to replace him as director. With Blomkamp being Peter Jackson’s protege, the rumour was almost obligatory, but it seems it was more wishful thinking than reality, perhaps from someone who couldn’t stomach other names that were being bandied about, such as Brett Ratner and David Dobkin.
Vulture has been speaking to someone from Blomkamp’s agents, William Morris Endeavor, and discovered that not only has he not signed on to direct The Hobbit, but he hasn’t even been contacted.
Vulture also adds that Blomkamp’s follow-up to District 9, which the director has been keeping a tight lid on, will be called Elysium, and that it will once more be a sci-fi tale. Although the story of the original script is being closely guarded, it’ll apparently be set on another planet and be very, very violent.
Blomkamp is making the film with funding from Media Rights Capital, an outfit that’s promised him completely creative control and an ownership stake in the movie. While it means he’s got to keep his budget in check, you can kind of understand why a director would prefer that absolute freedom to the nervous studio intereference that would inevitably go on with something like The Hobbit.