Annihilation (2018)

[Foggy]

Jennifer Jason Leigh joins the cast:

Ex Machina director Alex Garland may just have completed the core cast of his upcoming movie, Annihilation.

One of our favourite films of 2015? That'd be Alex Garland's directorial debut, Ex Machina. The superb movie was a rare-ish slice of intelligent science fiction, and it sounds like he's got another with his new movie, Annihilation.

It's an adaptation of the novel by Jeff VanderMeer, about four women set to Area X, an area of America that's been quarantined due to some unusual activity. They are the twelfth such expedition sent there, and it would be fair to conclude that the previous ones did not go well.

Garland is shooting the film later this year if all goes to plan, and has already signed up Tessa Thompson (Creed), Gina Rodriguez (Jane The Virgin) and Natalie Portman (Oscar winner for Black Swan, of course) to appear in three of the four lead roles.

The fourth? It looks like it's just gone to Oscar nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh.

She's earned her Academy Award nod for The Hateful Eight, and an offer has been made to her for the role in Annihilation. She's said to be keen to take it, and we'd expect this news to be confirmed imminently.

Read more: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alex...#ixzz3zqiKyfdn

[Pyro.Kitty]

Intriguing..

[The Debts]

Hope I like it more than Garland's last movie. He's a great screenwriter but I'm not sure about his directorial chops.

[levcore]

I didn't like Ex Machina one bit but this sounds much more interesting.

[stigdu]

Bit disappointed it's Jennifer Jason Leigh.

I was hoping Eddie Redmayne would round off the cast after her performance in The Danish Girl.

[jacobsever]

Originally Posted by The Debts

Hope I like it more than Garland's last movie. He's a great screenwriter but I'm not sure about his directorial chops.

Originally Posted by levcore

I didn't like Ex Machina one bit but this sounds much more interesting.

Whaaaat?!

This is some of the only negative things I've heard about Ex Machina. Considering how many end of year lists the film made. Are you guys going against the grain just to be different? lol

[1blufan]

Originally Posted by stigdu

Bit disappointed it's Jennifer Jason Leigh.

I was hoping Eddie Redmayne would round off the cast after her performance in The Danish Girl.

I'm with you on this, I've never been a big fan of Leigh's acting and this is even after seeing her in Hateful 8.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by jacobsever

Whaaaat?!

This is some of the only negative things I've heard about Ex Machina. Considering how many end of year lists the film made. Are you guys going against the grain just to be different? lol

Yeah I don't know what they are talking about. Ex Machina was the best film that came out in 2015.

[The Debts]

Originally Posted by jacobsever

Whaaaat?!

This is some of the only negative things I've heard about Ex Machina. Considering how many end of year lists the film made. Are you guys going against the grain just to be different? lol

Says the guy who flips out whenever people say nice things about Mad Max.

Anyway, to answer your question, no I'm not going againist the grain to be different. I was quite excited to watch Ex Machina because I love movies about AI and Science Fiction, Garland's previous work and the cast. But it never clicked with me. I found all of the characters either disposable or unsympathetic, the pacing was too slow and the direction lacking any kind of style. The whole affair felt sterile. It was a case of an interesting script but flat direction for me. I felt that if Garland had sent the script to his usual collaborator Danny Boyle, then you'd have some real magic there.

[Darth Marcus]

Source: ComingSoon

Oscar Isaac Reunites with Ex Machina Director for Annihilation
By Max Evry on March 30, 2016

Oscar Isaac reunites with Ex Machina director for Annihilation

Tracking Board is reporting that Paramount Pictures‘ upcoming futuristic gothic horror adaptation Annihilation, based on the first part of novelist Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” trilogy, has added Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Inside Llewyn Davis) to the cast. He’ll join a roster that already includes Academy Award winner Natalie Portman (Black Swan, Thor), “Jane the Virgin” star Gina Rodriguez and Tessa Thompson (Creed). The film will reunite Isaac with Alex Garland, the writer and director behind last year’s critically-acclaimed sci-fi thriller Ex Machina.

Annihilation, first published in 2014, is officially described as follows:

A team of four (a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor) set out into a place known as Area X. The area is abandoned and cut off from the rest of civilization. They are the 12th expedition. The other expeditions have been fraught with disappearances, suicides, aggressive cancers, and mental trauma.

Paramount Pictures and producer Scott Rudin (also a producer on Ex Machina) acquired the movie rights to the entire 2014 trilogy last year. “Annihilation” published in March 2015, was followed by “Authority” in May and “Acceptance” in September.

Isaac will next be seen playing the titular baddie in this summer’s X-Men: Apocalypse, and he is currently reprising his role of Poe Dameron in Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII.

[Will.]

Originally Posted by Darth Marcus

[Show spoiler]Source: ComingSoon

Awesome!

[kristoffer]

Cannot wait!

[The Debts]

Filming has wrapped up and here's some set photos, which look all sorts of purty.

http://www.slashfilm.com/annihilation-set-photos/

[ArrestedDevelopment]

Looking forward to this one. Ex Machina was one of the best movies of 2015 (along with Mad Max and Sicario) and I loved Garland's writing for Sunshine and Dredd.

[Heinz-Klett]

‘Annihilation’ Author Says Alex Garland’s ‘Mind-Blowing’ Adaptation Evokes Stanley Kubrick and ‘2001’

[...] The author [VanderMeer] has seen an early cut of the adaptation and has nothing but praise for Garland’s vision. Speaking to The Watch podcast on The Ringer (via The Film Stage), VanderMeer couldn’t help tease the movie by calling it “surreal” and noting how Garland took the ending into abstract Stanley Kubrick territory a la “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“It’s actually more surreal than the novel,” he said. “There are a couple places where I was like, ‘I might need an anchor here.’ The ending is so mind-blowing and in some ways different from the book that it seems to be the kind of ending that, like ‘2001’ or something like that, people will be talking about around the watercooler for years. Visually, it’s amazing. I must say that and that’s all I probably should say.”

But his praise didn’t stop there. In a Facebook post published earlier this month, the author added, “I can tell you it’s mind-blowing, surreal, extremely beautiful, extremely horrific, and it was so tense that our bodies felt sore and beat-up afterwards.”

While VanderMeer is no doubt bias given the film is based on his novel, he actually had no part in the adaptation process. Garland wrote the screenplay himself, and while he kept VanderMeer in the loop so that the author would know what was going on, the latter had no say in what made it into the script whatsoever.

“The first thing I realized is that even though Alex Garland says he’s not an auteur, he is an auteur,” VanderMeer told The Watch. “My expectation was to not have anything to do with the movie and that’s the actual fact. He wrote the script and he was kind enough to keep me in the loop during every part of the process, but that wasn’t for me to put my two cents in, basically. It was just so I would know what was going on.”

“Annihilation” stars Natalie Portman as a biologist who embarks on a mission into an environmental disaster zone to figure out what happened to her missing husband. Gina Rodriguez, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac and Tessa Thompson also star in the twist-filled drama.

The movie was originally set for release this fall, but Paramount recently pushed it back until 2018. While the wait may be long, it’s reassuring to know that even the author is thrilled with the liberties Garland took to his story. Consider “Annihilation” one of our most anticipated titles of 2018.
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/ann...na-1201833950/

Sounds great! This is easily my most anticipated movie of 2017 / now 2018. I love the "Southern Reach" trilogy.

[twardyyy]

Color me intrigued.... the premise and cast both seem very promising.

[imsounoriginal]

Re-teaming with Isaac? Hell yes.

[Cremildo]

Can hardly wait. With Garland writing and directing, it won't be hard to be better than the novel.

[imsounoriginal]

Got a pass to see this tomorrow, I'm assuming it's just a test screening cuz IMDb doesn't have this releasing til 2018. Also have a pass to Valerian but I'd honesty much rather see this and I doubt I can do both.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

Got a pass to see this tomorrow, I'm assuming it's just a test screening cuz IMDb doesn't have this releasing til 2018. Also have a pass to Valerian but I'd honesty much rather see this and I doubt I can do both.

I'd definetly go for this one out of the two, you'll have to let us know if it's good if you can.