That’s right! The film adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s eerie eco-horror novel, Annihilation, will hit theaters next February. The movie is Alex Garland’s follow-up film to Ex Machina, and stars Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Gina Rodriguez as a Biologist, Surveyor, Psychologist, and Anthropologist respectively, who venture into a top secret site for an expedition that does not go according to plan. Ex Machina vet Oscar Isaac will also appear in the film in a small role as the Biologist’s husband.
Garland adapted the script from VanderMeer’s novel, which is the first book in the acclaimed Southern Reach Trilogy. The trilogy follows the exploration of Area X, a mysterious terrain that has been isolated from the rest of civilization since an inexplicable cataclysm several decades earlier. While the first expedition returned with tales of a beautiful landscape, each subsequent foray into the zone has resulted in murder and tragedy. Now, years later, Annnihilation follows the twelfth expedition. The group consists of four women, with the Psychologist as the stated leader. The group is supposed to return with maps and a collection of specimens, and they are supposed to record each other continuously. Most important though: they must not allow Area X to contaminate them.
