Neil Blomkamp shows the world his CHAPPIE

Neil Blomkamp certainly had a busy weekend over at the San Diego Comic Con. With most of the attention from the convention attendees focused on his upcoming Elysium pic starring Matt Damon, the director took the time to hit the audience with a well-timed surprise, in the form of his Chappie.And no, before you ask, Blomkamp is not working on a movie that centers around a gigantic anthropomorphic chipmunk dressed in cute old-timey clothing, armed with gory rifles, such as the G.R.A.P.E Assault cannon or the bubbleliscious containment sphere.

Instead, Blomkamp is working on a film that combines his two loves, science fiction, and comedy, a project that he cryptically spoke about back in January, but has kept under wraps since then.

“I was writing Elysium and I had this idea for this film and so I wrote it with Terri [Tatchell], who wrote District 9 with me,” Blomkamp said.

I came up with the original idea and within three weeks, it was done. I would write that with her and then write Elysium on my own. It was a fairly fully-formed idea. It’s much more simplistic than Elysium in terms of overall concept. It’s a much more simple thing.

It’s a science-fiction comedy thing, that’s as far as I can go with that. District 9, Elysium and Chappie were all born out of some visual concept first. Chappie is the imagery, because I think I’m a visual person first, of this ridiculous robot character.

It’s much more comedy based, and in an unusual setting.

And that’s all he said folks. Still, a part of me, a really horrible part, hopes that Blomkamp will get some local casting done for the presumed voice of this robot, which is why I’m hoping that Alfred Ntombela gets a call soon…

Last Updated: July 16, 2012