Early works In the late 1990s, he started working in the film industry as a visual effects artist and 3D animator. His animation credits include
Stargate SG-1 (1998),
First Wave (1998),
Mercy Point (1998) and
Aftershock: Earthquake in New York (1999). In 2000, he garnered his first role of lead animator for
Dark Angel (2000). He was the lead 3D animator for
3000 Miles to Graceland (2001). In 2003, he was hired to illustrate photo-realistic future aircraft for
Popular Science's "Next Century in Aviation". In 2004, he illustrated "The Future of the Automobile". Blomkamp worked as a visual effects artist at
The Embassy Visual Effects in Vancouver as well as at
Rainmaker Digital Effects, and was signed by Toronto commercial house Spy Films. In 2007, to promote the release of
Halo 3, Blomkamp directed a trilogy of live-action short films set in the
Halo universe, known collectively as
Landfall. Blomkamp was then slated to direct his first feature-length film, an adaptation of the
Halo series of video games, produced by
Peter Jackson. Jackson came to know of Blomkamp after viewing a reel of his commercial work and shorts, shot in his off time. The four shorts that got him noticed included:
Tetra Vaal, a faux advertisement for a third-world police robot that established Blomkamp's signature style of mixing lo-fi production with seamless CGI;
Alive in Joburg, a gritty
mockumentary about extraterrestrials marooned in Johannesburg;
Tempbot, an
Office Space-esque spoof; and
Yellow, a short film based on the colour yellow for Adidas' "Adicolor" campaign by digital studio IDEALOGUE, which portrays a globe-trotting android gone rogue. Blomkamp has admitted since that the
Halo pre-production was a nightmare, and relations between 20th Century Fox and him severely disintegrated before the project's end.
Sci-fi trilogy , who played the lead in
District 9 When funding for the
Halo film collapsed,
Peter Jackson decided to produce
District 9 instead, an adaptation of Blomkamp's earlier short film
Alive in Joburg, which had been produced by
Simon Hansen and Copley. The film, directed by Blomkamp, starring Copley, and co-written with Blomkamp's wife and production partner
Terri Tatchell, was released in mid-August 2009 by
TriStar Pictures to widespread critical acclaim and became a box office success, earning $210 million worldwide.
District 9 was later nominated for the 2010
Academy Award for Best Picture, along with nominations for Best Visual Effects, Editing, and Adapted Screenplay. In October 2010, a video released on the
iPad version of
Wired Magazine was credited to Neill Blomkamp. It shows an amateur recording of two young men who find a dead mutated creature in a puddle of mud while driving down a countryside road. The creature, a dog-sized mix between a pig and a lizard, presents a tattooed seal on its side that reads "18.12 AGM Heartland Pat. Pend. USA". "AGM Heartland" was trademarked for its use in an entertainment-oriented website. On 20 February 2012, a 23-second video clip titled "IS IT DEAD?" appeared on YouTube, featuring
Yolandi Visser, of the South African group
Die Antwoord, crouching over the creature. Blomkamp admitted that he was still interested in making a
Halo film in April 2013. After
Elysium, he started work on his next sci-fi film,
Chappie, in April 2013. The film was based on his own short,
Tetra Vaal. Blomkamp directed and
Sony Pictures Entertainment (
Columbia Pictures) and
Media Rights Capital co-produced and co-financed the film, which was released March 2015. Сollectively,
District 9, Elysium, and
Chappie are sometimes referred to as a
film trilogy that shares distinctive aesthetics and social themes.
Unfulfilled projects and short films In early 2015, Blomkamp posted several pictures to his Instagram page that showed concept art for an
Alien film he might have been working on. Included in the art is Ripley and Hicks, a ship bearing resemblance to
The Derelict from the 1979
Alien, and a concept Xenomorph. In a February 2015 interview with
Collider, he stated that he planned the
Alien sequel with
Sigourney Weaver in the lead role as
Ellen Ripley. On 18 February 2015, Blomkamp himself confirmed that the
Alien film will be his next project. In March 2015, he confirmed that he planned more than one sequel to the
Alien franchise. The project was shelved in October 2015, pending the outcome of
Ridley Scott's second prequel installment,
Alien: Covenant. In January 2017, a fan on Twitter asked Blomkamp about the outlook of the film going into production, he responded by saying they were "slim". On 1 May 2017, its title had been revealed to be
Alien: Awakening. Ridley Scott confirmed Blomkamp's film had been officially canceled. Fans of the franchise started a petition to help save Blomkamp's cancelled film. Since then, there have been no further developments. In November 2015, it was announced that Blomkamp would be working on adapting the forthcoming
Tom Sweterlitsch novel
The Gone World, described as a "sci-fi time travel" concept, but the film was either subsequently scrapped or stuck in "
development hell," with production never going forward. In 2017, Blomkamp announced the creation of his own film production company,
Oats Studios, and confirmed a series of experimental short films and other content titled
Oats Studios Volume 1 to be released via
Steam. The films will also be available for free streaming on YouTube. These films are distributed to gauge interest in a certain theme, with the intention to expand them into a feature film if deemed viable. The first short, an alien invasion-themed film co-written with Sweterlitsch, is titled
Rakka. In July 2018, Blomkamp announced that he would be directing a new entry in the
RoboCop film series for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was to be adapted from a previously unproduced
spec script written in the late 1980s by
Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, the writers of the
first film, who were slated to executive produce the film. Tentatively titled
RoboCop Returns, the film was to serve as a direct sequel to the first film, ignoring 1990's
RoboCop 2 and 1993's
RoboCop 3, as well as the
2014 remake. On 15 August 2019, Blomkamp announced on Twitter that he is no longer directing
RoboCop Returns as he is focusing on directing a horror movie instead.
Return to larger projects In December 2020, it was revealed that Blomkamp had secretly shot a supernatural horror film,
Demonic, in British Columbia during the summer of 2020 amidst the
COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2021, it was confirmed that the sequel to
District 9 was in the works but that the script was still under development. In 2022, it was announced that he would direct the sports film
Gran Turismo based on
the video game series and the true story of
Jann Mardenborough, a teenage
Gran Turismo player that later would become an actual racing driver. In March 2025, Columbia Pictures tapped Blomkamp to write and direct an adaptation of
Robert A. Heinlein's military science fiction novel
Starship Troopers. He is also reportedly working on an adaptation of
Peter Watts's novel
Blindsight. ==Style==