14 Directors Who Desperately Need A Hit Movie

8. Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp is one of cinema's great examples of a director who peaked too early. At the mere age of 29, he directed the Peter Jackson-produced sci-fi smash hit District 9, which caused most to wonder if he was going to become the next great blockbuster filmmaker.

Unfortunately, Blomkamp followed this up with two underwhelming efforts that certainly weren't terrible, but nowhere near the level of his audacious, Best Picture-nominated debut.

Elysium was broadly successful but considered disappointing to many fans, while Chappie was much more divisive with both audiences and critics. Since then Blomkamp was preparing to shoot Alien 5, but Ridley Scott effectively killed it by pushing ahead with Alien: Covenant instead.

Will It Happen?: Blomkamp has age on his side, and if he teams with a more consistent writer in the future, he'll probably be just fine.

With the possibility of expanding his recent experimental short films into a full feature, his planned adaptation of Thomas Sweterlitsch sci-fi novel The Gone World and Fox reportedly "reconsidering" the direction of the Alien series post-Covenant, he at least has plenty of avenues to explore.

He may never reach the heights of District 9 again, but he'll probably recoup critical favour and commercial success sometime in the future.