Neill Blomkamp is embarking on an experimental filmmaking venture that he’s calling Oats Studios. The District 9 and Elysium director released a trailer for some of the studio’s upcoming projects, which will be released to Steam in the next couple of months.
The trailer opens with a shot of an overgrown Eiffel Tower, as a voiceover explains that aliens have come to exterminate humanity. The trailer then shows off quite a bit more: a woman shooting an alien in a red-lit corridor, American soldiers flying over Vietnam, trucks flying Texas flags driving through the desert, a whole bunch of cool-looking aliens and quite a bit more. The trailer explains that what’s coming soon is a series of short, experimental films called Oats: Volume 1.
Blomkamp has been teasing hints about Oats Studios for the last year, asking if fans would be interested in buying films off of Steam, and posted some intriguing images to Twitter, showing off one of the aliens seen in the trailer, as well as a Vietnam-era soldier. Earlier this month, he showed off a 15 second teaser showing off a soldier shooting down... something.
While Blomkamp earned considerable acclaim for his debut feature District 9, he got his start with short films, such as Alive in Joburg (which became District 9), Landfall, a short Halo film (his debut film was originally supposed to be an adaptation of the Bungie franchise), and more recently, an entry in BMW’s The Hire series, featuring Clive Owen. From the looks of it, these upcoming short films will be a set of really exciting science fiction films.
The trailer simply says that Oats: Volume 1 will be streaming soon. Whenever it hits, Oats Studios has our attention, and we already can’t wait to see what Blomkamp has up his sleeve.
