Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium doesn’t open until 2013, yet we’ve already been talking about it since late last year—a measure of both how much faith we have in Blomkamp after District 9, as well as how admirably Blomkamp has perfected the art of the tease. Besides the occasional casting leak—a roster that includes Jodie Foster, Matt Damon, and William Fichtner, along with Blomkamp’s longtime collaborator Sharlto Copley—most of the project has been completely shrouded in secrecy, which only makes it all the more tantalizing. Here’s what we do know: It’s set 150 years into the future, in a technologically advanced world that will be realized by Blade Runner designer Syd Mead. Foster will star as the leader of an alien planet. Matt Damon will play a guy with a shaved head (rumored to be an ex-con). It will be “very violent,” while at the same time getting across one of those social allegories that Blomkamp likes so much. It will not necessarily feature gross sea creature aliens.
Anything else at this point is just speculation, something that will no doubt be fueled even further by the film’s slowly emerging viral campaign. As with District 9, Elysium’s producers are using Comic-Con to push awareness, hanging cryptic posters that point to a website for a fake conglomerate that, according to the recruitment video below, is seeking interested workers in the fields of zero-G welding, mega-structural engineering, and the like for “the most ambitious project ever undertaken by mankind.” A giant quilt? We bet it’s a giant quilt. [via /Film]