While $30 million seems like a lot, it's pretty small when half of District 9's main characters had to be CG-ed into each frame. We talked to producer Peter Jackson about the benefits of that budget and working with aliens.
Because of the budget did a lot of things in District 9 that had to be cut?
Peter Jackson: Everything that Neill wanted to put into the film, we tried to make happen for him. We didn't have to compromise. It's weird because it was a relatively large budget film, i mean relative, $30 million is still a lot of money. It was enough money to be able to put on screen the story that Neil wanted to - it helped it largely by the style that he shot it in, which was very documentary, realism style. So we didn't have to put a gloss on it like some of the bigger budget movies have. We could be down and dirty and seem like some of it was shot with a handy cam, we had that ability which helped the budget immensely. It gives the film a vibrancy and a feeling of being improvised, it has that quality about it.
Would you ever consider making another alien film?
Possibly; I have no plans or rules about doing anything in particular. I just operate from some kind of instinct, that if I read a book or think of a story idea that I get excited about that ... it becomes a film that I want to make. At the moment I'm concentrating on The Hobbit, which we are shooting two movies back-to-back [that] I'm producing and Guillermo Del Toro is directing. And and I've got Tintin with Steven [Spielberg]... But beyond that, we'll see; I don't know the project for the future. It could be aliens, I've got no issues with aliens, happy to shoot some more movies with aliens.