Peter Jackson made movie and box-office history when he directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of the biggest movies Hollywood had ever seen. Now Jackson—the first person to direct three feature films simultaneously—returns to the big screen, but this time behind the scenes as producer of the sci-fi action thriller “District 9.”

Opening nationwide on Aug. 10 and distributed by Viva International Pictures, “District 9” tackles a most interesting and timely subject: aliens making contact with the earth.

In the movie, not only do they make contact, they actually come and live on earth—in a place called District 9 in South Africa as refugees from their homeland. An organization called Multi-National United (MNU) is tasked to take charge of them. But MNU is not interested in the aliens’ welfare; they realize that they will make a huge profit for themselves if they can get the aliens’ weaponry to work. The attempt fails, as the weapons need alien DNA to work. When that happens, they start evicting the aliens from District 9 and moving them to another concentration camp.

Then, an interesting twist: one of the MNU field operatives, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts an alien virus that begins changing his DNA. When this happens, Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable, because he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: “District 9.” All of a sudden, the hunter becomes the hunted, and he now finds himself one of them.

“District 9” is a Wingnut Films Production and is presented by Peter Jackson in association with TriStar Pictures and Block/Hanson. This is not Jackson’s first attempt at producing a film; in 2005, as a follow-up to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson directed, wrote and produced King Kong for Universal Pictures. The film grossed over $500 million and won three Oscars.

“District 9” is directed by Neill Blomkamp and written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell. The whole idea for the film came from the Blomkamp, who was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa before moving to Canada, where he is now based. Blomkamp brings to the screen a movie that has all the intensity and action of a video game and the speed of the music videos and commercials that he cut his teeth on before turning to film directing.

“Neill Blomkamp is a terrifically exciting young director,” says Jackson. “We were considering a production of Halo, based on the video game. That movie never happened, but we loved working with Neill so much that when he pitched us District 9, we decided it would be fun to turn his idea into a feature film.”

“District 9” has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for Bloody Violence and Pervasive Language and will be released in theaters nationwide on Aug. 10.