In a Los Angeles Times interview, District 9 director Neil Blomkamp explains what happened that there's no District 9 videogame.

[Geoff Boucher]: There's been interest in taking "District 9" on past the film either as a sequel, a television show or a video game. At this point, what's your view on those pursuits? You would have a say, yes?

[Neil Blomkamp]: I definitely have input into it. Ultimately the person with the most control is Peter [Jackson, producer of "District 9"], but I for sure would have some influence over whether that happens or not. I play a lot of video games. The idea of "District 9" as a video game stresses me out a little bit because games based on movies rarely work. And movies based on games don't work -- I don't know what's up with that.

GB: Well, wait, if you were going to direct "Halo," why were you going to make a video-game film if they don't work? You thought you were the guy that could make it work?

NB: Yeah, totally, that's exactly why. But anyway, "District 9" as a game would be fascinating. And I don't want to see it happen for any sort of corporate reason or profit thing. I used to be involved in computer graphics and I love virtual environments. That's why I like video games, really. And I think a virtual environment of the slums of Soweto is an appealing idea to me. The weapons are cool, too. I photographed the film in a way that isn't that different than video-game perspective in some parts. So a game would be interesting to me. There's nothing happening with it though.

I have to say I couldn't be happier that there is no District 9 videogame. The movie carefully established a world based on a bold political point -- that we are incurious, dismissive, and ignorant when it comes to other cultures and refugees -- and then it fleshed that world out through character development instead of action scenes. It was the polar opposite of videogaming. It would have been a travesty to see this rendered down to a mecha action game or a typical first person shooter in which you storm the research lab and battle through the slums. Compare this to Avatar, which is already a great big videogame of a movie that wasn't even effectively translated into a videogame.

Still, I'm sure there's a roomful of executives somewhere kicking themselves for leaving so much money on the table. Because you know you would have bought a District 9 videogame and so do they.