Welcome to District 9

MANILA, Philippines - Peter Jackson made movie and box-office history when he directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of the biggest movies Hollywood had ever seen. Now Jackson — the first person to direct three feature films simultaneously — returns to the big screen, this time behind the scenes as producer of sci-fi action thriller District 9.

Opening nationwide today and distributed by Viva International Pictures, District 9 tackles a most interesting and timely subject: Aliens making contact with the earth.

In the movie, not only do they make contact, they actually come and live on earth — in a place called District 9 in South Africa as refugees from their homeland. An organization called Multi-National United (MNU) is tasked to take charge of them. But MNU is not interested in the aliens’ welfare; they realize they will make a huge profit for themselves if they can get the aliens’ weaponry to work. The attempt fails, as the weapons need alien DNA to work. When that happens, they start evicting aliens from District 9 and moving them to another concentration camp.

Then, an interesting twist: One of the MNU field operatives, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts an alien virus that begins changing his DNA. When this happens, Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable, because he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9. Suddenly, the hunter becomes the hunted.

District 9 is a Wingnut Films Production and is presented by Peter Jackson in association with TriStar Pictures and Block/Hanson.

District 9 is directed by Neill Blomkamp and written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell. The idea for the movie came from Blomkamp, who was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa before moving to Canada, where he is now based, brings to the screen a movie with all the intensity and action of a video game and the speed of music videos and commercials he made before turning to film directing.

District 9 has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for Bloody Violence and Pervasive Language.