Neill Blomkamp, best known as the director of surprise sci-fi hit District 9 and the upcoming Elysium, has said he considers the collapse of the Halo movie to be the best thing to happen to his career to date.
Blomkamp says that had Halo gone ahead he would never have made District 9 and the movie's failure to get off the ground has taught him several valuable lessons.
He was due to collaborate on the Halo project with Lord of the Rings' director Peter Jackson.
"The luck is the fact that Peter and Fran [Jackson's wife] let me make [District 9] out of the ruins that were Halo. What happened out of that was learning to trust my ideas. If Halo had come out and succeeded or failed, I wouldn't have learned that."
Following the success of District 9 key Hollywood studios threw projects at Blomkamp only for the South African director to turn them down and focus on his own ideas.
"It's getting to the point now where [his agency] WME just doesn't send me stuff any more. It's not because I think I'm better than any of that stuff. There are many franchises out there I would love to participate in. There are many franchises out there I would love to participate in. The problem is when you agree to do that, you take a lot of the control that you have over your own creative destiny away from yourself."
Source: LA Times Hero Complex.
