South African Producer Snaps Up Film Rights For Clarke Award Winner Zoo City

South African film producer Helena Spring has won the film rights to this year’s Clarke Award-winning novel Zoo City, the cyberpunk thriller by fellow South African Lauren Beukes.

This comes after a furious international bidding war, including bids from UK and US producers.

Read the full article.

Will we have another District 9 type of success on our hands? I certainly hope so.

Another famous South African director

Neil Blomkamp may be the talk of the town these days with his directorial debut of District 9, but there is also another famous South African director lurking around in Hollywood.

Remember Gavin Hood? He started of as the Wester Province Rugby fullback in the South African TV series, The Game. This is the same guy that went on to write and direct the Oscar winning Tsotsi. His follow up film to Tsotsi was the critical acclaimed Rendition starring Reese Whitherspoon and Jake Gyllehaal. The movie only went on to make around US $27 million. That is not a lot according to Hollywood standards, but it did deal with some issues that makes the American public little uncomfortable. It certainly wasn’t a mainstream film.

The next movie he directed was none other than X-Men Origins: Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman. He got a little stick from the die hard X-Men fans for it, but the movie still went on to make a whopping US $ 363 million and had a budget of US $150 million.

That is a good profit by any means. It is always good seeing Saffas making it big.

Neill Blomkamp and Sharlto Copley Interview

Below is funny interview with South Africans, Neill Blomkamp and Sharlto Copley from the block buster movie District 9. There are a lot of interviews with them on Youtube, but I think this was the funniest and most entertaining of them all.

Jonathan Trott makes starting 11 for Ashes Test

With South African expat, Kevin Pietersen, injured for the next Ashes cricket test between England and Australia, the English selectors decided to call up another South African expat to strengthen their batting line up. Jonathan Trott has been called up for the final Ashes Test. As I previously reported, Jonathan was called up to be in the squad, but at that stage it was uncertain whether he would actually make the starting 11.

Congratz to Jonathan. I hope you have a good knock!

District 9 Tops Box office

District 9, written and directed by South African expat, Neill Blomkamp, has topped the box office in the US with a whopping US$ 37 million ticket sales in the first weekend. The movie cost approximately US$ 30 million to make and the way things are going it will surely top US$ 100 million after the world wide release.

Critics say it is the best movie of the year and maybe one of the best sci-fi movies of all time. The South African actor Sharlto Copley that plays the lead in the movie, has been praised with one of the best acting performances of the year.

Before the opening of the movie, there was fears that a two hour movie filled with South African accents, which played of in Johannesburg, will be a little too much for American audiences.

There are already talks of a possible sequel as well as a possible Oscar for special effects. What makes the good box office earnings so special is that the movie is rated R, which effectively keeps out kids. Family films traditionally earn on average much more at the box office.

Well done guys! Also a great thanks to Sony pictures that took the risk on the unknown South African cast and director to make this movie.

District 9

The South African expat movie director, Neill Blomkamp, has made his award winning short film, District 9, into a full length feature film. The movie which was written by himself is also being directed by him and is being produced by none other than Peter Jackson. For those of you who don’t know who Peter Jackson is, he is the dude that made Lord of the Rings and King Kong.

District 9 is a action packed movie located in Johannesburg. The underlying theme pokes fun at the South African mindset. The movie deals with Aliens (the space kind) that has landed in South Africa. They are being kept separate (like in apartheid SA) in a location called District 9 (shacks) and are being treated, well, pretty much like black people was treated in apartheid SA.

The Aliens will off course complain about not getting jobs and being oppressed and not getting any service delivery.

The special effects in the movie looks absolutely amazing.

Below is the trailer for the movie.

SA Expat called up for Ashes squad

South African expat, Jonathan Trott, whom has been playing cricket for Warwickshire for the past eight seasons has been called up to join the England squad for the final Ashes test. He was originally called up to replace the injured Flintoff, but latest news indicates that Flintoff will be ready to play the final test.

The inclusion of Jonathan Trott in the squad doesn’t mean that he will actually play in the next test, but he is surely knocking on the door.

If you are in the UK, also have a look at the online newspaper, The South African.