Ahead of presenting their film at Comic Con in San Diego this week, producer Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp talk about the making of aliens-in-Africa movie District 9

Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp movie District 9 opens at cinemas on August 13. Photo / Supplied

Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp movie District 9 opens at cinemas on August 13. Photo / Supplied

In 1987 a young Kiwi film director got his career off to a spectacular splattery start with a low-budget alien movie made in his backyard.

Twenty-two years after his DIY splatter sci-fi comedy Bad Taste announced Peter Jackson as a film-maker to watch, he's delivering another one.

Only it's in someone else's backyard, its "low" budget is beyond the wildest dreams of most first-time directors and Jackson has got his now very famous name on the poster as producer, not director.

District 9 is set in director Neill Blomkamp's native South Africa where insectoid aliens have landed in a giant ship.

Only instead of invaders they arrive as refugees and are forced to live in Johannesburg shanty towns, their presence raising the hackles of the city's human residents .

It's been made with a relatively tiny budget of US$30 million ($46 million), though the helicopter shots and impressive computer-generated special effects apparent on its trailer suggest it's not exactly Bad Taste II.

It's the first movie, since his success with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson has produced but not directed. He and partner Fran Walsh initiated the project, which is based on an earlier short film by Blomkamp entitled Alive in Joburg.

That short, which displayed Blomkamp's skills as a visual effects artist, as well as a CV of music videos and high-budget, big-brand television commercials, had got him the job of directing Halo, the movie of the hit sci-fi videogame which was being produced by Jackson.

Video - Alive in Joburg

When Halo's financing collapsed in a stand-off betweens studios Fox and Universal, Blomkamp had been in Wellington for four months working on the film.

After the bad news arrived, he was preparing to head back to Canada where he had lived since immigrating from South Africa as a teenager.

"It is a horrible experience when your movie collapses around your ears," says Jackson taking a break from Hobbit scriptwriting sessions to talk to TimeOut. "It's pretty depressing. Fran and I were going to be okay but we really felt sorry for Neill. He's a clever film-maker."