Having only just released his anticipated sophomore feature, Elysium, Neill Blomkamp is wasting no time in moving forward with his next film, Chappie.
Like Elysium, Chappie has been on the cards for some time now, and it was announced earlier in the year that Sony and MRC will be reuniting to finance Blomkamp’s third movie.
Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival over the weekend, on the press circuit for Prisoners, Hugh Jackman has revealed that he’s joined the cast and will be shooting the film next year.
Chappie tells the story of a robot imbued with artificial intelligence who is stolen by two local gangsters who want to use him for their own nefarious purposes.
Sharlto Copley, who of course led District 9 and starred alongside Matt Damon in Elysium, will star as the eponymous robot, using performance capture. And joining him as the two gangsters will be Ninja and Yolandi Visser, the South African rappers of Die Antwoord (The Answer).
Jackman didn’t reveal his role in the movie, but said that he’ll be in Johannesburg for a couple of weeks in the New Year, which would suggest it might not be central, but could well be an important supporting role, making the cast that much more interesting.
I am doing a role in Neill’s new movie, called Chappie, which we shoot in Johannesburg. I’m there for a couple of weeks at the beginning of next year.
Blomkamp will be directing from a script he co-wrote with Terri Tatchell, with whom he also co-wrote District 9.
Chappie is already set to be released on March 27th, 2015, and is undoubtedly going to be one of the biggest movies, and certainly one of the most anticipated, coming out in the blockbuster-heavy year that is 2015.
