Age: 46
male
Neill Blomkamp (Afrikaans: [ˈnil ˈblɔmkamp]; born 17 September 1979) is a South African and Canadian film director and screenwriter. He is known as the co-writer and director of the science fiction action film District 9 (2009), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the director of the dystopian science fiction action film Elysium(2013), which garnered moderately positive reviews. He also directed the science fiction action film Chappie (2015) and the sports drama film Gran Turismo (2023). Blomkamp employs a documentary-style, hand-held cinéma vérité technique, blending naturalistic and photorealistic computer-generated visual effects. His films often deal with themes of xenophobia and social segregation. He is also known for his collaborations with actor Sharlto Copley. Time named Blomkamp as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2009. A 2011 Forbes article named him the 21st most powerful celebrity from Africa. Description above from the Wikipedia article Neill Blomkamp, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Legionnaire is a 2022 American epic science fiction action film written, co-produced, and directed by Neill Blomkamp, based on the novel of the same name by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole. It is the first installment in the Galaxy's Edge film series. The film stars Vin Diesel, Liv Tyler, Billy Crudup, Morgan Freeman, Sharlto Copley, Tika Sumpter, Matt Damon, and Jordana Brewster. It is set in the year 2047, where Sgt. Cohen Cchun (Diesel) must lead a group of survivors, including Bryla Overton (Tyler) and Corbett Frank (Crudup), while also coming into conflict with cyber-terrorist Salazar Amand (Copley) and protecting the survivors from him. The film suffered a difficult production following a series of critical and commercial failures in Blomkamp's career. The production involved several replacement directors until Blomkamp was hired in 2021. Legionnaire was released to critical acclaim, with critics praising the film's bright tone, direction, cinematography, action sequences, respect to its source material, the emotional weight of the story, screenplay, visual effects, style, and Bear McCreary's score, as well as Diesel, Tyler, Crudup, Copley and Freeman's performances. It also grossed over $1 billion worldwide and became Blomkamp's highest-grossing film in his career. A sequel entitled Galactic Outlaws was released 2 years later.
