District 9: Interview Round-Up

District 9 opens in just two days, and there is a lot of press to show for it. The past few days have had numerous interviews from the director, Neill Blomkamp, all the way to the composer, Clinton Shorter. Here is a brief rundown of the interviews we’ve caught wind of so far. There are some minor spoilers in some of the interviews, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

ScoreNotes Interview with Composer Clinton Shorter – Shorter talks about the experience of composing for such a unique film. “Raw” and “Dark” were the key words Blomkamp used in expressing his vision for the score, and they tried to keep it true to the local setting. Shorter also goes into a bit of what you can expect from the film, including how the first act is mostly documentary style, so composing for it was a challenge. No real spoilers here.



Latino Review Interview with Neill Blomkamp – Very in-depth. Blomkamp goes into how he came up for the story for the film, how the film compares to the 80s TV series “V”, and how it things might have been different if the aliens “landed” in the United States. There’s even some deleted scene and sequel talk, so be aware of spoilers.



Ain’t It Cool News Interview with Neill Blomkamp – Another lengthy interview with the director. Even more spoilers, as they go into deleted scenes and sequel talk as well.



i09 Interview with producer Peter Jackson – Let’s take a break from Blomkamp for a moment and talk to the legend himself, Mr. Jackson (if you’re nasty). Check out the video on the site to hear it from the man himself, but here’s what he had to say about the film:

Because of the budget did a lot of things in District 9 that had to be cut?

Peter Jackson: Everything that Neill wanted to put into the film, we tried to make happen for him. We didn’t have to compromise. It’s weird because it was a relatively large budget film, i mean relative, $30 million is still a lot of money. It was enough money to be able to put on screen the story that Neil wanted to – it helped it largely by the style that he shot it in, which was very documentary, realism style. So we didn’t have to put a gloss on it like some of the bigger budget movies have. We could be down and dirty and seem like some of it was shot with a handy cam, we had that ability which helped the budget immensely. It gives the film a vibrancy and a feeling of being improvised, it has that quality about it.


Would you ever consider making another alien film?

Possibly; I have no plans or rules about doing anything in particular. I just operate from some kind of instinct, that if I read a book or think of a story idea that I get excited about that … it becomes a film that I want to make. At the moment I’m concentrating on The Hobbit, which we are shooting two movies back-to-back [that] I’m producing and Guillermo Del Toro is directing. And and I’ve got Tintin with Steven [Spielberg]… But beyond that, we’ll see; I don’t know the project for the future. It could be aliens, I’ve got no issues with aliens, happy to shoot some more movies with aliens.

FirstShowing Interview with Neill Blomkamp – OK back to the man of the hour. Watch our friend Alex’s interview below:

Attack of the Show Interview with Neill Blomkamp – Blair Herter sat down with Blomkamp about the original story behind the alien sci-fi movie, its special effects and all the media buzz. Watch below:

Video Game – E3 2009 – Attack of the Show

District 9 opens this Friday, August 14th. We’ll have a review that day, as well as a special podcast on Monday.