If we were a movie star, we’d like to think we’d want a career like Matt Damon. Since breaking out with “Good Will Hunting,” the actor’s gone out of his way to work with consistently interesting directors, from Steven Spielberg and Anthony Minghella early in his career to more recent collaborations with the likes of Paul Greengrass, Clint Eastwood and the Coen Brothers. And today’s brought the surprise news that Damon looks to be teaming with one of the most exciting talents to debut in the last few years.
Deadline reports that Damon is in early talks to topline “Elysium,” the follow-up film from “District 9” director Neill Blomkamp that was announced last week. If the talks come off, Damon will join the star of Blomkamp’s first film, Sharlto Copley, who was previously confirmed to be appearing in some form in the film.
Plot details are still firmly under wraps, although the film’s set to be another sci-fi film with a sociopolitical subtext, albeit with a bigger budget than “District 9,” thanks to financing from Media Rights Capital, who Damon worked with on the upcoming Philip K Dick adaptation “The Adjustment Bureau.” The company won’t take it to distributors until next year, once the cast are fully in place, so we imagine more announcements will come shortly.
While obviously most of the details here are under wraps, we were big fans of “District 9,”and big fans of Damon’s work in general, and the combination seems to be a potent one. Damon’ll be filming Cameron Crowe‘s “We Bought A Zoo” until early next year, and is set to work with Steven Soderbergh again on “Liberace,” filming in the summer, so we imagine that the film will shoot in between these two.
