Elysium, the highly anticipated next movie from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp, isn’t even out yet (set for release on August 9th), but casting is already underway for his next project, which is titled Chappie.

According to sources, Slumdog Millionaire and The Newsroom star Dev Patel is in early negotiations to star in the movie, which is written by Blomkamp and his wife, Terri Tatchell, who also co-wrote District 9.

Continue reading for more and to see a video of the short that inspired Chappie.

The movie is based on a 2004 short by Blomkamp titled Tetra Vaal, which is a fake advertisement for robots designed to police the slums. Basically District 9 with robots controlling human slums instead of humans controlling alien slums. Nothing else is known about what exactly Chappie will be about.

Video

[Source: Heat Vision]