Neil Blomkamp’s secretive new sci-fi pic Elysium is set to get significantly cooler with word that scene-stealing character actor William Fichtner is locking in a deal to join the cast.
Elysium already features the likes of Matt Damon, Sharlto Copley, Wagner Moura and Jodie Foster (who you may recall shared the screen with Fichtner in Contact).
While Blomkamp is keeping the movie’s plot strictly guarded for now, we do know it’s epic in scale, takes place in the future on a distant planet, and will feature the director’s love of social commentary amongst the gadgetry and alien life. Oh, Damon’s playing an ex-con and Moura is playing the villain, a man described as having a crazed sense of humour. It’s set to kick of shooting this July in Vancouver and should be out in March 2013.
Fichtner, meanwhile, was last seen as the best thing in Drive Angry 3D, despite Nicolas Cage also being in it (read more about that in the webchat he did for us here). He’ll be looking forward to working with Blomkamp and also a possible role in Rubber director Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong. Also known as Reality, the film sounds like another serving of quirky madness, just from reading the plot synopsis: While her father, a taxidermist, guts a wild boar he has killed, his little girl, Reality, notices a video cassette in the animal’s belly. That evening, Reality retrieves the video from the bin. She wonders whether she should watch it. What’s on the tape? What’s in her imagination?" We can only guess...