Word: jacksonism
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Sometimes bad breaks can bring great fortune. A few years ago, Peter Jackson, the Lord of the Rings movies, planned a big-screen version of the Halo video-game universe and tapped Neill Blomkamp to direct it. When that project collapsed after a few months, Jackson proposed that Blomkamp turn his science-fiction short Alive in Joburg into his first feature film. It would be set in Blomkamp's native South Africa, focus on the country's traumatic tradition of apartheid, have characters who speak in unfamiliar accents or unknown languages, boast no star power - the lead actor had never...
...infected and forges a bond with the aliens to save his own life, is the sixth s-f action adventure to win a weekend in the 2009 summer season that began in early May with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But it's the first one not sponsored by Hollywood - Jackson raised the money, Sony bought the rights - and the first South African film that American audiences have paid much attention to since the tribesman fable The Gods Must Be Crazy earned $25 million (about $55 million in today's dollars) in 1985-86. Essentially, this is a little foreign film...
...Deadline Hollywood Daily blog, industry reporter Nikki Finke summarized the reasons for the film's big bust-out: "Jackson's name means so much to 18-49 aged moviegoers. Comic-Con geeks and movie critic old farts loved it. (Finke later amended the laater phrase to "movie critic geezers." Thanks, Nikki.) It's the #1 most tweeted topic Friday night. And Marc Weinstock's viral marketing campaign for a year bore no Sony/Tri-Star logo on purpose so it wouldn't have a big studio's PR machine feel. (As if the audience had organically discovered the pic themselves...
...Representative Sheila Jackson • suggestion by that footage showing talking on cell phone by while being asked a question at a town-hall meeting may be "a doctored video...
Blomkamp, who directed three shorts in the Halo video-game universe, was hired by Jackson to make a Halo feature. That project foundered after a few months, and Jackson proposed that Blomkamp make a different feature right away. He resuscitated the Alive in Joburg idea, expanding and improving it into District 9. Jackson even let Blomkamp cast Copley, a high school pal who had never acted, in the lead. Amazingly, Copley carries the film, bringing to a most demanding role the scheming dimness of Harry Dean Stanton mixed with the dogged, unwarranted optimism of Steve Carell. Jackson, says Blomkamp...