14 DAY TRIAL // Neill Blomkamp is going where few other directors have gone before: he’s admitting to having messed up his previous film, the 2013 Matt Damon vehicle “Elysium.” In a very honest interview with Uproxx, Blomkamp admits he got too caught up in the making of the film to notice that the story wasn’t holding up.
“Elysium” is a beautiful film, in the sense that it’s visually gorgeous. However, its biggest flaw is that it fails to engage the viewer in the story, to the point where it looks like it completely sacrificed substance for style.
Blomkamp understands why people would think that: because this is exactly what happened. He messed it up, he admits. He was so focused on the concepts he wanted to bring to life that he forgot the story they were part of, and it came out underdeveloped.
“But I just think the script wasn’t… I just didn’t make a good enough film is ultimately what it is. I feel like I executed all of the stuff that could be executed, like costume and set design and special effects very well. But, ultimately, it was all resting on a somewhat not totally formed skeletal system, so the script just wasn’t there; the story wasn’t fully there,” he says.
Blomkamp will have opportunities to make up for this, though. Obviously, he can’t go back and redo “Elysium,” but he has a new movie, “Chappie,” in theaters soon. He will also get to direct an “Alien” sequel for Fox, a project he dreamed of landing since he was a kid: the original “Alien” with Sigourney Weaver is the film that got him into filmmaking in the first place.