21 Bridges actor Taylor Kitsch will be starring in director Neill Blomkamp’s latest sci-fi thriller Inferno. The film, about a cop in New Mexico who investigates a seemingly-ordinary murder only to discover that the perpetrator is an alien monster, is slated to begin production sometime early next year.
Blomkamp made a huge splash with his debut film District 9 back in 2009, but received a much less enthusiastic response to his subsequent movies Elysium and Chappie. The director has been attached to a number of projects in the past few years, including reboots/sequels of two beloved sci-fi action films from the 80s, Aliens and RoboCop. However, the Aliens project ultimately fizzled, and Blomkamp recently announced on Twitter that he has moved on from any involvement in a RoboCop sequel. Inferno will be the first film he has directed since 2015’s Chappie.
Kitsch’s status as a leading man has suffered from high profile flops like John Carter and Battleship, but he has found recent success in meaty supporting roles on prestige television dramas like Season 2 of True Detective and the Paramount Network limited series Waco. It seems both Kitsch and Blomkamp would welcome another chance at box office success, and Inferno might well be the project to do it.
It’s an interesting premise, sort of like an extended episode of The X-Files told from the point of view of a small-town cop. And neither Kitsch nor Blomkamp are untalented, though Blomkamp has received some criticism for retreading the same ground in his earlier films, which all focus on power dynamics in a world of “hi-tech poverty.” But Inferno sounds like an entertaining departure, and who doesn’t want to see Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights try to arrest an alien?
