Neill Blomkamp has turned away from Hollywood movies because he grew tired of having "brain-numbing discussions" with film studios.
The acclaimed director has recently moved away from making big-budget movies and has instead thrown his support behind short films, because the platform affords him more creative freedom.
Explaining his reasoning, the ‘Chappie’ director said: "There’s definitely no formula or precedent, really, for it. But it doesn’t come from a place of wanting to go back to short films.
"It comes from a place of wanting to be able to do what I want to do and express what I want to express without having to have brain-numbing discussions about the political studio point of view of what they think the right move is. And obviously, you can’t spend tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars on large-scale feature films with an approach like this.
"Definitely not at the beginning. So the short film result is simply like a function of the financial pressure – it’s not that that’s the goal."
Neill is also keen to interact more with online fans and is intrigued to know what they feel about his new work.
The director – whose new venture, Oats Studios, is dedicated to creating experimental short films – told Den of Geek: "I want to see online if there’s a way to interact with people who like the stuff. If there’s anyone who really likes it, is there a way we can interact with them?
"Can they give us designs for where they think some of the weird alien vehicles could go? Do they have ideas of where a sequel may go? And if there’s anything in there that I like, we can incorporate that into what we’re doing.
"So there’s this open collaborative thing, so long as I’m ultimately the curator and in control of where I think all of the creative stuff should go."
Neill Blomkamp explains decision to shun big budget movies
