More or less. It can depend on the production, of course, but pre-production generally includes getting the script past the treatment/spec-script phase and usually takes a few months to get it ready for shooting. EX of this going wrong of course: Alien 3 took too long in pre-production and just hit their production schedule with a chaotic script situation.
At this point, from what little Blomkamp has said is everything seems to be line up for shooting to start later in the year if things go smoothly. Hopefully, they don't muddy the waters and have a dozen goddamn writers try and "fix" things.