Neill Blomkamp’s follow up to upcoming sci-fi action thriller ELYSIUM may have found its leading man in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE’s Dev Patel. Currently starring in HBO’s The Newsroom, Patel’s career has been on the rise since he joined the cast of the original series of Skins in 2007 and followed that up with Danny Boyle’s Oscar heavyweight which thrust him into the limelight.
We don’t know much about the plot of CHAPPIE at this stage although it is rumoured to be based on a sci-fi action short from 2004, TETRA VAAL, which was also made by Blomkamp and centered around a fake advert for a robotic police force patrolling the slums of South Africa. So far the cast list comprises Sharlto Copley, Eugene Khumbanyiwa and Brandon Auret who all starred in Blomkamp’s DISTRICT 9.
Alongside his current role in Aaron Sorkin’s latest drama The Newsroom, which starts it’s much anticipated second season next week in the US, Patel currently has two other projects in the pipeline. First up he will star as Maths genius Srinivasa Ramanujan in Matthew Brown’s THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY, slated for a 2014 release, and he will also play a man with OCD in Gren Wells’ THE ROAD WITHIN alongside Zoe Kravitz and Robert Sheehan.
Source: THR
