Monday, 17 June 2013




Film 936: District 9

Trivia: As part of the marketing campaign in North America and the United Kingdom, posters were put up in major cities on bus stops, the sides of buildings, etc. designating areas that were restricted for humans only, with a number to call (866.666.6001 in the US, 0207 148 7468 in the UK) in order to report non-humans. The title of the film was generally not included, although the URL address for the film's official website was.

The film was inspired by director Neill Blomkamp's childhood in South Africa during apartheid.

Star Sharlto Copley had not acted before and had no intention of pursuing an acting career. He stumbled into the leading role as Neill Blomkamp placed him on-camera during the short film.

The mutilated animal carcasses in the background of many scenes were real and with only a few exceptions, were already in the real slums and shacks used for the filming.

All the shacks in District 9 were actual shacks that exists in a section of Johannesburg which were to be evacuated and the residents moved to better government housing, paralleling the events in the film. Also paralleling, the residents had not actually been moved out before filming began. The only shack that was created solely for filming was Christopher Johnson's shack.

Around six different endings were created during filming.

Sharlto Copley ad-libbed all his lines during the "documentary" sequences.

In South Africa, the last name "van der Merwe" really is a fairly common surname (it, like many Afrikaans names, comes from the Dutch), but it would also be recognizable to most South Africans as the common name in a whole genre of jokes about stupid, bumbling, oblivious, or incompetent Afrikaaners. The fact that the Wikus van der Merwe character is (at least at the beginning of the film) an ineffectual, catastrophically clueless bureaucrat is immediately communicated by the screenwriters' decision to give him that particular name.

The language used by the aliens (clicking sounds) was created by rubbing a pumpkin.

The first documentary-style film to be nominated for Best Picture.

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