As the last piece of big, expensive blockbuster entertainment before the summer is out, hopes are riding high that Neill Blomkamp‘s “Elysium” can deliver something of a bang to go out on, as the season thus far has been fairly disappointing. “District 9” proved that the director could marry brains and brawn with pretty spectacular results, and the anticipation is that he can do the same here.
A new clip has arrived for the movie and it provides another peek at the grimy futureworld Earth has become. In the film, Matt Damon plays a cancer-stricken ex-con who decides to infiltrate the gleaming space-station world of Elysium, where the elite live, in order to cure his disease and help save a sick child along the way. But breaking in ain’t easy, requiring him to become something of a homebrew cyborg, as we see here. He’ll also have to face Secretary Delacourt, the cold-blooded protector of Elysium, a role played by Jodie Foster, though initially, the part was written for a man.
But, Blomkamp had the good sense to realize the gender didn’t matter to the part, and producer Simon Kinberg thought of putting Foster in the part. “I thought, ‘That would be fucking awesome, but there’s just no way,” Blomkamp told EW. “But then, within, like, a day I had a meeting with her and she said, ‘I want to play it.’ I was like, ‘Holy shit!’” Needless to say, he was excited.
“Elysium” opens on August 9th and you can catch a 46 second glimpse below.