I’m scouring my newsfeeds as I usually do every morning looking for viable movie news, when I ran across this headline on the USAToday feed: “Peter Jackson is back to basics on low-budget ‘District 9′”. You see, because in Hollywood, a $30 million dollar movie is considered low-budget.
Or maybe that’s what the studio told USAToday, and USAToday being the unmotivated newspaper they are, is just going along with it. If you’ve even seen a piece of “District 9″ (consider the trailers), you know there is nothing low-budget about it. It’s a big-time Hollywood movie, minus the excessive actor’s pays (Denzel Washington or Tom Cruise alone would have cost the movie $20 million just for showing up) and gazillion luxury trailers for all the “talent”.
But make no mistake about it, when you go to see “District 9″ when it opens in two weeks, with its incredible spaceship effects, running aliens, and mech suits, you won’t be seeing a movie made by Little Joey Jonesy and his buddies from down the street. “District 9″ may cost “only” $30 million, but a major South Korean movie studio can make about the same movie, with the same visual effects, for one-thirds of that. See “Yesterday”, “Lost Memories”, or “Natural City” for examples.
So here’s a heads up to the mainstream media covering “District 9″: just because Peter Jackson and the studio suits tell you in their press kit that the film is “low-budget”, it doesn’t mean you have to keep regurgitating it like mindless androids.
Below: Oh yeah. This movie just screams Sci Fi Channel Original Movie. NOT.
I like long walks on the beach, puppies, and Kevin Costner post-apocalyptic movies. You can reach me at nix (at) scificool.com. Also, check out my other ridiculously ill-informed opinions and reviews over at 
Totally agree with your comments. Hopefully this film will breed others like it. Goes to show that VFX can be done with a decent budget.
I was blown away to learn such little money (in hollywood terms) was spent on this movie. I found the effects to be top notch and the film to be incredible. By far one of the best Sci Fi films in the last few years.
this movie was overrated. this is a cookie cutter plot. it felt like it was lacking script, or writing, or … SOMEthing. anyone else think that they used 'fuck' (fook) as a filler? if youre going to curse, change it up a bit.
Yes, this movie IS low-buget, don’t confuse low budget with low quality, this movie shows that those terms are not one and the same.
“$30 million, but a major South Korean movie studio can make about the same movie, with the same visual effects, for one-thirds of that.”
They’d probably be able to make it cheaper, but that’s only because of the exchange rates and the cost of labor.