District 9 director Neill Blomkamp has once again asserted that the long, long-awaited science-fiction sequel is still coming. Speaking with Dexerto, Blomkamp has revealed that he is now working on bringing District 10 to the big screen, and while he does not have a timeframe in mind, he is confident enough to state that it will be here sometime in the “near future.”

“I am still working on it… the answer is it’s within the near future.”

Audiences have been crying out for a return to Neill Blomkamp’s alternate present ever since the release of District 9 back in 2009. Blomkamp made quite the impression on audiences with District 9, which utilizes both found footage in the form of fictional interviews, news footage, and surveillance cameras, as well as more traditional sequences, to tell a satirical sci-fi action story.

The tale begins in an alternate 1982, during which a giant extra-terrestrial spaceship arrives and hovers over the South African city of Johannesburg. A population of sick and malnourished insectoid aliens are discovered living in squalor inside the ship, and are subsequently moved and confined to an internment camp, District 9. Leaping forward twenty years, the ship still casts a shadow over the city. The government decides to relocate the aliens to another camp, resulting in one of the aliens, known as Christopher Johnson, crossing paths with bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe, who is about to find himself the target of a nationwide manhunt.

Written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9 stars Sharlto Copley, David James, and Jason Cope as Christopher Johnson, District 9 was met with critical acclaim, with audiences having cried out for District 10 ever since. Thanks in no small part to the movie’s somewhat bleak, cliffhanger ending, which finds Sharlto Copley’s Wikus transformed into an alien, with Christopher jetting off into space and promising to return in three years with a cure.

Clearly, Christopher is running late.

Neill Blomkamp Has Teased the Direction of District 10

Director Neill Blomkamp reignited the calls for District 10 in 2021, with the filmmaker taking to social media to reveal that the “District 10 screenplay also being written by @sharlto @territatchell and I. Its coming…”

Since then, Blomkamp has offered some insight into what District 10 will involve, revealing that the sequel will use a topic from American history as its foundation. “That script continues to be written. It’s looking good,” Blomkamp said. “It took a decade to figure out, to come up with a reason why to make that film as opposed to just make a sequel. There was a topic in American history that the second I realized that that fit into the world of District 9, it felt like an awesome way to do a sequel. So yeah, it continues to be developed and it’s getting a lot closer.”


Despite movie follow-ups feeling the need to go bigger, Blomkamp has also assured fans of the original that District 10 will be “as stripped-down and bare bones as we could make it. That becomes more nimble and more creative, and personally, I like that.”

After all these years, are you still excited to see Christopher Johnson return in District 10?