Film director Neill Blomkamp was originally set to direct the Halo film before the project was ultimately scrapped. Ironically, this ended up working out in Blomkamp's favor, providing him the opportunity to work with Peter Jackson to create District 9.
As such, Blomkamp is quite thankful for the cancellation of the Halo movie, if only because of what arose from the ashes. He told the LA Times:
The luck is the fact that Peter and Fran let me make [‘District 9’] out of the ruins that were ‘Halo’. What happened out of that was learning to trust my ideas. If ‘Halo’ had come out and succeeded or failed, I wouldn’t have learned that.
It’s getting to the point now where [his agency] WME just doesn’t send me stuff any more. It’s not because I think I’m better than any of that stuff. There are many franchises out there I would love to participate in. The problem is when you agree to do that, you take a lot of the control that you have over your own creative destiny away from yourself.
Fun fact: District 9 is my favorite movie of all time, so I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Blomkamp here. That said, I would still love to see him make a Halo flick, as there's no doubt in my mind that he would be the best man for the job.
Neill Blomkamp's latest film, Elysium, hits theaters later this week.
[Via]
