Originally, Neil Blomkamp was involved in a film adaptation of the popular video game series Halo after helming a well-received publicity short film for the franchise's third installment. Working with The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson in a producing role, the project was put on hold when the determined budget was too high. Jackson and Blomkamp decided to instead create a feature version of Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joburg, with a smaller budget and using many of the same effects techniques and crew that were attached to Halo.
Influenced by his childhood in apartheid South Afica, Blomkamp adapted Alive in Joburg's central parable into a feature length narrative. Portraying extraterrestrials as blacks, Blomkamp sought to create both a grounded meditation on real-world issues by filming in actual slums and drawing explicit comparisons between the Prawns and South African blacks, all while attempting to maintain a balance with the space opera origins of the project by using his lifelong love of visual effects and world-building to create a realistic alternate history. Both the science fiction elements and the social commentary elements quickly achieved a point of symbiosis that was sustained throughout production.
