Stephen Merchant Is Almost Unrecognizable In New Logan Photo, But Is He Playing Caliban?

Between them, James Mangold, Hugh Jackman and the film’s official Instagram account – known as wponx – have proven bustling sources of content for Logan, the R-rated X-Men sequel that’s deep in production ahead of its bow in March.

With each day that passes, a new black and white photo claws its way onto the interwebs, and over the weekend a new pic asked the whereabouts of all the mutants. Retaining the monotone aesthetic, embedded below are two new cryptic images for Mangold’s threequel, though it’s really the one up top that will really steal the headlines.

That’s because it fully unveils the bald Stephen Merchant in rather eerie fashion, fuelling rumors that The Office stalwart is on board to portray the mutant known as Caliban. It’s by no means a sure thing; the only caption that James Mangold included with the high-res snap touts the specifications of the camera on which it was taken. What we do know is that Tómas Lemarquis previously played Caliban in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse, though it’s impossible to tell whether that will have much of a bearing on his potential inclusion in Logan – if at all.

While we wait for official answers, below you can continue to admire the film’s stark art style.

SUNSEEKER. LOGAN. 3.3.17. pic.twitter.com/e0pnrKv7WV

— Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman) October 16, 2016

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A photo posted by @wponx on Oct 17, 2016 at 7:23am PDT

Also starring Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant and Elizabeth Rodriguez, Logan is earmarked for launch on March 3, 2017. Surely all of these intermittent teases are laying the groundwork for the unveiling of the film’s first teaser, right?