In a comic-strip version of the film industry, Ridley Scott is Lucy to Neill Blomkamp’s Charlie Brown, which would make those Alien eggs the football, I guess? At any rate, impressing Fox with his concept art and getting the green light to develop an Alien sequel, Blomkamp had the project swiftly yanked away as Scott’s own Alien: Covenant (and an as-yet-named sequel) took precedent — leaving Alien 5 on indefinite hold. But don’t worry; Blomkamp isn’t sitting around and waiting for a phone call that might not come for several years (if ever).

The District 9 and Chappie director shared this interesting photo on Instagram, which features a gnarly design for…something. Whatever it is, it’s not Alien 5:

There’s a face only David Cronenberg could love.

It’s not clear what Blomkamp is working on — it might not even be a film. Whatever the case, and despite the narrative failures of Elysium and Chappie, Blomkamp has continued to prove himself as an inventive, distinctive talent when it comes to concept and production design. I’ve long suspected it might be better if Blomkamp directed films based on screenplays written by other people, as he’s yet to deliver a film anywhere near as good as his feature debut — though each has offered some really terrific tech design.

For now, we can speculate about this photo and what that face might mean. Is it a mutant? Did Blomkamp make a deformed version of an Engineer from Prometheus as a “screw you” to Fox? Clearly, if this is for a movie, it probably belongs to Sharlto Copley.

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