‘District 9’s’ Neill Blomkamp does more with less

Over the course of its opening weekend in theaters, the sci-fi thriller “District 9″ earned $37 million at the box office, surpassing all commercial expectations and, moreover, hauling in $7 million more than the scrappy quasi-documentary cost to produce. As of Tuesday night, the film had pulled in $10 million more, earning a total $47.1 million domestically en route to its new, unofficial designation: the surprise hit of summer.

For anyone who follows Hollywood’s behind the scenes machinations closely, though, “District 9″ isn’t just a surprisingly thoughtful sci-fi stand-out in a season characterized by big, dumb studio tent-pole movies; it’s a revelation.

The movie arrives as a kingmaking debut for its writer-director Neill Blomkamp, who won’t turn 30 until next month and who up until its release had no feature film experience, save for a scuttled attempt to adapt the video game Halo to the screen. But “District 9’s” wow factor — quantifiable, among other ways, by its 88% “freshness” rating at rottentomatoes.com — can be attributed to something other than Blomkamp’s pedigree. And it isn’t the fact that the movie was executive produced by Oscar-winning writer-director Peter Jackson of the “Lord of the Rings” franchise. His oversight on the project helped ensure that the highly original “District 9″ would connect with its crucial fan boy audience at a time when every other successful multiplex offering seems to be based on a toy or comic book character.