‘Elysium’ Trailer Debuts Online, New Film From ‘District 9’ Director [VIDEO]

“Elysium,” Neil Blomkamp’s follow-up to “District 9,” stars Matt Damon and Jodie Foster and will be released on Aug. 9. The first trailer debuted online Tuesday and 10 minutes of the film was shown at events around the globe.

According to the official synopsis of “Elysium,” “In the year 2159, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the planet’s crime and poverty, and they critically need the state-of-the-art medical care available on Elysium – but some in Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve their citizens’ luxurious lifestyle.”

Damon will be playing Max, a man who lives on Earth but needs to get to Elysium to save his life, who accepts a mission that puts him at odds with Elysium’s Secretary Delacourt, played by Foster. “Elysium” will be a sci-fi thriller and the trailer offers a good glimpse of a bald Damon and the stark contrast between the worlds of Elysium and Earth. Max gets an exo-skeleton surgically grafted to his body and tangles with Elysium’s robot forces.

Before the release of the trailer, fans were treated to a first look at 10 minutes of “Elysium” at events held in Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Berlin on Monday. Damon appearance at the Berlin event was simulcast to the other locations and he also fielded questions after the screening, notes CBS News. Blomkamp was in attendance at the Hollywood screening at the Arclight Theater, notes Vulture.

In “Elysium,” Blomkamp will continue to mix social commentary with action, offering a sci-fi epic with brains, similar to “District 9,” which was an Oscar nominee for a Best Picture in 2009. The screen revealed some more details about the plot and characters. Max is a former car thief who becomes irradiated after a factory accident. He also only has five days to live, which is one of the reasons why he accepts such a dangerous mission to infiltrate Elysium. Some parallels to the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as the immigration debate, could be drawn from the film’s plot, but Blomkamp is downplaying such interpretations.

“It was the first time that I realized that I was making a film that, in terms of the global consciousness, fit into a CNN sound bite. That upset me a little bit. But they both come from the same place, I just don't want [the coverage] to be fast-food and throwaway,” he said, according to Vulture.

Blomkamp does note that “Elysium” will also have a sense of humor as well as plenty of action and other elements that will be crowd-pleasers alongside to the brainier material.

The first trailer for “Elysium” can be viewed below.