The debut feature from commercial and music-video director Neill Blomkamp is tale about extraterrestrials forced by humans to live in squalor in a ghetto in S. A.

It drew in moviegoers with its unique marketing plan, playing up the theme of bias against aliens, which included posters teaching citizens to report non-humans and ads on bus benches saying the seats are for humans only .

‘Everybody was like, ‘What is this?’ there had been a real question mark in people’s minds,’ Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony, told the Associated Press. ‘It did truly pique their interest and drove them to the internet and elsewhere to find out what is going on on.’

‘District 9′ beat out last week’s one,’G.I.