Is the acclaimed District 9 director about to take on another sci-fi monster franchise?

Early this morning, Blomkamp posted a series of quotes on his Instagram account, all from the awesome 80s action thriller Predator. “Stick around”, “If it bleeds, we can kill it” and of course “Get to the chopper!” are all there, and all immediately throw me back to watching the film for the first time on an old VHS, slightly too young to be doing so.

But so what? People post homages and quotes on social media all the time, why is this any different? It’s different because Blomkamp has set a precedent for this kind of thing before.

Cast your mind back to the beginning of this year and you may remember some of the brilliant Alien concept art that the director posted on Instagram. Not as a promotion, or a hint of anything to come, but merely as a fan showing something he’d like to see.

What came next was pretty much unprecedented in the industry. Less than a month later, due to positive press and fan demand, Neill Blomkamp confirmed that Alien 5 would be his next project, complete with Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as Ellen Ripley.

So could posting these Predator quotes on Instagram be a sign of Blomkamp’s next move? We know that Shane Black (famous for directing Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, as well as appearing as the bespectacled Hawkins in the original) has reportedly written a script and wants the directing gig, but in the year since that announcement, news has remained quiet on the project, short of producer John Davis letting us know it was ‘still on track’.

Could there be trouble behind the scenes, with Neill Blomkamp lining himself up to take on the project? Or, even more excitingly, could he be orchestrating an Alien vs Predator movie worthy of the name? The previous attempts were less than stellar, and there’s very little more exciting than Blomkamp’s Xenomorphs going up against Black’s Predators.

Check out Neill Blomkamp’s Instagram to view the image.

Mister.S