Sony Pictures Acquires Rights to Peter Jackson’s District 9

Today, Sony Pictures announced that it had acquired all North American and all English-language distribution rights to Peter Jackson’s “secret” sci-fi movie, District 9. The Academy Award winning director and friend to elves, hobbits and any and all demi-humans everywhere, however, will not direct the feature. He will, instead, act as producer through his WingNut Films and Neill Blomkamp will direct. It’s Blomkamp’s feature debut, and he also wrote the film alongside Terri Tatchell. Blomkamp’s previous work includes short films for the Halo 3 launch, titled Landfall, and he’s also been attached to the forthcoming Halo film, which is now in pre-production.

Sony Pictures, understandably, is stoked.

“We have seen some of Neil’s enormously creative work launching Halo 3 and he is a true talent who understands how to use visual effects in full service of the story. With Peter Jackson and his team at WETA workshop working with Neil, we believe District 9 can be a true event tentpole on our release slate,” said Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment

Should you be stoked? I guess. It’s a little tough to get too worked up about a movie you don’t know anything about, but I’d probably watch someone take a dump if Peter Jackson’s name was attached to it. The film begins shooting in South Africa in Spring 2008, and those involved are being pretty tight-lipped about the plot. Expect to read a lot of half-truths and rumors to flooding a nerd-centric message board near you.