Heavily guarded Dev Patel in Soweto

According to The Times, the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ actor joined the principal cast of ‘Chappie’ over the weekend, and was reportedly surrounded by “three burly Monster-energy-drink-carrying bodyguards” who threatened the publication’s photographer with police action if he didn’t delete all the pictures he took of the star.

The 23-year-old actor joined fellow cast members Sharlto Copley, and rap-ravers Yolandi Visser and Ninja of Die Antwoord fame at the film’s base camp in Soweto, but big Hollywood stars Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver are seemingly still set to arrive, as they were nowhere to be seen.

Patel was apparently given a taste of the Braamfontein nightlife earlier in the week when he visited the Great Dan pub with the rest of the cast.

Co-owner of the pub, Stefan Schoonraad, told The Times: “We’re friends of Die Antwoord, and they said they would be bringing some of the guys for the night. But we weren’t sure who exactly.”

The publication also reports that the sci-fi film could possibly be released under the name ‘Street Wise Professor’, as this is the name “used on a published material so far”.

Blomkamp’s new offering is, like his breakthrough sci-fi film ‘District 9’, based on an existing short film, 2004’s ‘Tetra Vaal’, which is a fictional advert for a robotic police force that watches over the slums of South Africa.

A logline supplied by production companies Sony Pictures and Media Rights Capital explains the film’s plot: “After being kidnapped by two criminals during birth, Chappie becomes the adopted son in a strange and dysfunctional family. Chappie is preternaturally gifted, one of a kind, a prodigy. He also happens to be a robot.”

The film is slated for release in 2015.

– TEAMtalk Media