After his surprise hit District 9, director Neill Blomkamp had the film world at his feet. The socially critical science fiction film received four Oscar nominations in 2009. Four years later, the South African presented his long-awaited follow-up work: Elysium. Unfortunately, the star-studded blockbuster failed to live up to expectations. Of the Director himself was deeply dissatisfied with his work.
The sci-fi blockbuster Elysium failed due to high expectations
Elysium – Trailer (German) HD
Elysium is set in the year 2154. The world has become one gigantic garbage dump. The gap between rich and poor is huge. While the 99% of the population dwells in the ruins of the past, the privileged 1% have idyllic Elysium space station, orbiting the once-blue planet at a safe distance. Only there is a life worth living possible for people and entry is required accordingly. Matt Damon joins the immigration battle as ex-con Max. His opponents: the ruthless Secretary Rhodes (Jodie Foster) and the mercenary Kruger (Sharlto Copley).
Elysium isn’t particularly bad, but it’s not particularly good either. It wasn’t a disastrous box office flop, but it fell far short of expectations given the budget and the star cast in front of and behind the camera. It wasn’t a complete creative disappointment, either, but it doesn’t seem to have been thought through to the end.
At a Budget of $115 million Elysium raked in $268 million, according to Box Office Mojo. The film was rated 6.6 on Moviepilot. Compared to District 9 (7.1) a drop of 0.5 points.
“Goofed it”: How the Elysium director himself feels about his sci-fi film
Elysium – Trailer 2 (German) HD
In 2015 Blomkamp looked back on Elysium in an interview with Uproxx. “The film I made just wasn’t good enough”, he said. High expectations don’t bother him. What bothers him is the feeling of having “screwed up” a film. And he felt that way about Elysium. Here he elaborates on his troubles with the blockbuster:
In fact, the story is for a simple rich-poor conflict unnecessarily complicated and the motivations of the characters are not always understandable. In the meantime, Elysium hardly seems to be interested in the satirical idea described by Blomkamp and gets lost in ground fights between the Matt Damon character and the Sharlto Copley mercenary. As a result, Elysium takes place almost exclusively on a turf level and can never unfold its full science fiction potential. The sadness about everything that would have been possible is therefore quite justified.
This article was updated after the TV broadcast to include the streaming notice on Netflix.
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How do you think back to Elysium?