While many of us have got our sights set on Neill Blomkamp's new sci-fi movie Elysium, he's got another mystery project in the works, too. A few years ago, in late 2010, a random/mysterious viral video popped up in the digital version of Wired magazine showing some freaky, disgusting, mutated creature of sorts with the tag AGM Heartland. It was soon discovered it was a small, new, sci-fi mutation project from Neill Blomkamp, but not much more was known and we haven't heard anything else until now. MovieViral has found another new video from AGM Heartland, finally starting up this odd viral again, and now we know more about what it is.
The new video, titled just "marvg" on YouTube, is apparently the latest AGM Heartland update. How do we know it's real? Blomkamp hinted this was coming in a Comic-Con interview ("I may release another video of that pretty soon actually") but we'll have more on that later. MovieViral backs them up: "My opinion is that this is legit, and not a fan video." Plus it seems too well made to be anything else. For now, as long as you didn't just eat lunch and can stomach a disgustingly mutated animal-creature-alien thing, fire up this video:
A few other notes: MovieViral has also learned that the main guy is actor Josh Blacker, who also has a role in Elysium, another connection to Blomkamp. All that we learned originally was that this project was going to be "about a fictional genetic engineering company that produces genetically engineered and altered organisms." Nothing has been seen/heard on it since, and Blomkamp has confirmed that this has nothing to do with Elysium. "That has nothing to do with Elysium," he said while at Comic-Con. These quotes come from an interview held at Comic-Con with The Playlist, where they got just a bit more out of him about it:
Folks may remember that in the fall of 2010, a mysterious video he directed appeared in an iPad issue of Wired titled "AGM Heartland." Nothing has been heard about it since, but Blomkamp said it's "a weird, strange science fiction comedy" shot on an iPhone, and that there may be more on the way: "That has nothing to do with 'Elysium.' That's another project that may very well see the light of day soon, that is absolutely hilarious. Hilarious. I love that project. I may release another video of that pretty soon actually."
A comedy? Has anyone been laughing at these videos so far, or is it all just a little too weird and disgusting to be funny? Or are we all in for a big surprise when we get duped and this whole thing leads to something that is hilarious. I guess all the banter between these guys in the car was kind of funny. Also, I think the setup at the end with the title Marvin might be a hint at the actual name of this series, and the kind of tone we're going to get. Thanks again to MovieViral for pointing this out and providing a lot of the info. We'll keep an eye on this and any updates related to AGM Heartland.