Did you like District 9?  Imagine if writer-director Neill Blomkamp had 100 million more dollars to play with and access to huge movie stars like Matt Damon and Jodie Foster to help tell his next story.  You'd then have Elysium.

Ever since the movie was first announced, we've been covering it here on Collider, including its presence at last year's Comic-Con.  Since it's the follow up to a great movie, we've definitely had high expectations.  If the ten minutes of footage and the new trailer that I watched today at the Arclight in Hollywood are any indications, not only will our lofty expectations be met, they'll be exceeded by far.  We might be talking about the film of the summer.  Continued after the jump.

While the ten minutes of footage and the trailer revealed a lot more about the story, as most of you know, I hate running spoilers.  So here's the basics:

The movie is set in 2159, and two classes of people are divided: the wealthy live on a man-made space station called Elysium, while the rest of the humans inhabit an overpopulated and ruined Earth.  Matt Damon plays a desperate man who is trying to reach Elysium, Jodie Foster’s character runs Elysium, Sharlto Copley is an agent of Foster's character living on Earth (he's the one who tries to stop Damon), Alice Braga plays a doctor, and William Fichtner plays an extremely rich businessman.

What really struck me about the footage was how everything felt like a real place.  This isn't some green screen movie.  Blomkamp filmed at real locations and used CG to amplify it.  For future Earth, they went to some dodgy places in Mexico City.  And for Elysium, they traveled to Vancouver and then added CG.  Trust me, the separate filming locations gives the film an air of authenticity that soundstages can't ever reproduce.

Of course, while we all want a great story, the action is just as important.  Thankfully, some of the footage we were shown featuring Damon fighting futuristic robots was jaw dropping.  Again, the best way I can describe Elysium is to say it's District 9 with a shitload more money.

With the trailer hitting tomorrow at 4pm PST, you can see for yourself how awesome Elysium looks.  Until then, here's a video blog I did with Peter and Germain from /Film shortly after the presentation ended earlier today.

Elysium hits theaters August 9th.  You should start counting down the days.  For more on Elysium, click here.