| Annihilation | |
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.png) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Alex Garland |
| Screenplay by | Alex Garland |
| Based on | Annihilation byJeff VanderMeer |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Rob Hardy |
| Edited by | Barney Pilling |
| Music by | |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 115 minutes[2] |
| Countries |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $40–55 million[3][4][1][5] |
| Box office | $43.1 million[1] |
Annihilation is a 2018science fictioncosmic horror[6] film written and directed byAlex Garland, loosely based on the2014 novel byJeff VanderMeer. It starsNatalie Portman,Jennifer Jason Leigh,Gina Rodriguez,Tessa Thompson,Tuva Novotny, andOscar Isaac. The story follows a group of scientists who enter the Shimmer, a mysterious quarantined zone of mutating plants and animals caused by an alien presence. The movie is a co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States.
Released theatrically in the United States byParamount Pictures on February 23, 2018,Annihilation was released digitally byNetflix in a number of other countries on March 12, 2018. It received largely positive reviews from critics and grossed $43 million worldwide. According toEmpire magazine, the film addresses "depression, grief, and the human propensity for self-destruction."[7]
Cellular biology professor and formerUnited States Army soldier Lena is under interrogation. She is the only survivor of the latest expedition to an anomalous zone known as the Shimmer.
The Shimmer emerged three years prior, from a meteor that crash-landed at theSt. Marks Light lighthouse in theSt. Marks National Wildlife Refuge inFlorida, and has been gradually expanding. Many exploratory expeditions were organized, but only Lena's husband, Kane, returns home after a year of lost contact. Kane cannot explain where he was and how he came back, and his condition quickly deteriorates. Lena calls an ambulance, but she and Kane are intercepted by security forces and taken to a secret facility. As Kane is put inintensive care,psychologist Dr. Ventress prepares a new scientific expedition into the Shimmer, and Lena joins her.
Three other women participate in the expedition: Cassie, ageomorphologist; Anya, a paramedic; and Josie, aphysicist. Communication equipment does not function within the Shimmer's territory, and the expedition encounters unusually mutated plants and animals. Josie is attacked by an albino alligator with several concentric rows of teeth. At an abandoned military base, the group finds a video message from Kane's expedition, in which Kane cuts open another soldier's abdomen with a knife to reveal slithering intestines. The group finds the soldier's corpse, which has turned into an overgrown colony oflichens.
At night, Lena and Ventress share a watch and reflect on humanity's strange instinct to destabilize and destroy itself. They're joined later by Cassie, and the base is attacked by a mutant bear that drags Cassie away. Lena later finds her mutilated corpse. Within an abandoned village, Josie studies plants that have taken on a humanoid form, and theorizes that the Shimmer functions as aprism, distorting and transforming everything that falls within its boundaries—including the expedition members' ownDNA. Anya, overcome with paranoia after watching her fingerprints change, disarms the other members and ties them to chairs, and accuses Lena of murdering Cassie. The mutant bear returns and lures Anya away by emitting a cry for help in Cassie's voice. The bear kills Anya, while Josie frees herself and shoots the bear.
Ventress leaves the group and heads for the lighthouse, the center of the Shimmer. Josie believes Cassie's dying mind was "refracted" into the bear, and laments that the only piece left of Cassie was the pain and fear she experienced while being killed. She allows herself to succumb to the Shimmer and "refract" into a humanoid plant, hoping to avoid a similar fate. Lena follows Ventress to the lighthouse, where she discovers Kane's remains and a videotape. In the footage, Kane leaves an instruction to find Lena before killing himself with aphosphorus grenade. After the explosion, adoppelgänger of Kane steps into frame.
Within the hole created by the meteor, Lena finds Ventress, who explains that the Shimmer will eventually swallow everything. Ventress then disintegrates into ashimmering cloud that absorbs a drop of blood from Lena's face and changes into a faceless, shimmering, humanoid being that mimics Lena's movements. Unable to escape the creature, Lena tricks it into igniting one of Kane's leftover grenades as it transforms into her doppelgänger. Lena flees the burning lighthouse, and the Shimmer dissipates, destroying itself as it mindlessly mimics the explosion.
Back in the present, Lena's interrogation concludes, and she learns that after the Shimmer fell, Kane's condition began to stabilize. Lena visits the Kane doppelgänger and asks if he is really Kane, which she doubts. He asks if she is Lena, but she does not answer. They embrace and theiririses shimmer.
Paramount Pictures andScott Rudin acquired thefilm rights toAnnihilation, the then-unpublished first novel inJeff VanderMeer'sSouthern Reach Trilogy, on March 26, 2013.[8] Rudin andEli Bush were set toproduce the film,[8] andAlex Garland, who had previously worked with Rudin and Bush onEx Machina, was hired to write and direct the film in October 2014.[9]
Garland explained that his adaptation was necessarily based on only the first novel in the trilogy: "At the point I started working onAnnihilation, there was only one of the three books. I knew that it was planned as a trilogy by the author, but there was only the manuscript for the first book. I really didn't think too much about the trilogy side of it."[10]
Garland said his adaptation is "a memory of the book", rather than book-referenced screenwriting, with the intention of capturing the "dreamlike nature" and tone[11][12][13] of his experience reading VanderMeer's novel. Rather than trying to directly adapt the book, Garland deliberately took the story in his own direction, with VanderMeer's permission. Garland did not read the other two books when they were completed, as he was concerned he would need to revise his script. When others informed him of elements of the sequels, he expressed surprise at some of the similarities to what he had written.[14]
Some critics have noted the film has similarities withArkady and Boris Strugatsky's 1972 science-fiction novelRoadside Picnic andAndrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film adaptation,Stalker.[15][16][17][18]Nerdist Industries' Kyle Anderson noted an even stronger resemblance to the 1927 short story "The Colour Out of Space" byH. P. Lovecraft[19] (also adapted for the screen on several occasions, includingColor Out of Space in 2019), which is about a meteorite that lands in a swamp and unleashes amutagenic plague.[20] In his review, Chris McCoy of theMemphis Flyer foundAnnihilation to be reminiscent of both "The Colour Out of Space" andRoadside Picnic/Stalker.[20] VanderMeer stated that the original novel "is 100% NOT a tribute to Picnic/Stalker",[21] but rather drew influences from works byJ. G. Ballard andFranz Kafka.[22]
The first cast member to joinAnnihilation wasNatalie Portman, who entered negotiations with Paramount in May 2015, under the agreement that production not begin until 2016.[23] Once Portman had agreed to play the biologist, the next cast member added wasGina Rodriguez, who entered talks with the studio in November 2015.[24] By that point, production was set to begin in early 2016, a decision made to accommodate Portman's schedule, but which also meant that the film would be shot during Rodriguez's break from filmingJane the Virgin.[25]Oscar Isaac, who had previously worked with Garland inEx Machina, joined the cast in March 2016 as the husband of Portman's character.[26] By the end of April,Tessa Thompson,Jennifer Jason Leigh, andDavid Gyasi were also attached to the project.[27]
In theSouthern Reach novels, the Biologist is described as being of Asian descent and the Psychologist is mixed-race and half-Indigenous. As Portman and Leigh were cast in those roles, in 2018 the Media Action Network for Asian Americans and the American Indians in Film and Television advocacy groups accused Garland ofwhitewashing.[28] Garland responded by saying that there was "nothing cynical or conspiratorial" about the casting, and that the book in which the characters' races are revealed,Authority, had not been released whenAnnihilation was written and cast.[29] Portman also responded to the controversy, saying that she did not know her character had a specific ethnicity until whitewashing concerns were raised, and that Garland had intentionally not spoken to VanderMeer about the other twoSouthern Reach novels because he wanted to focus on adaptingAnnihilation.[30]
Principal photography for the film was underway by April 2016, when actor David Gyasi was added to the cast.[31] Lighthouse Pictures Ltd started location filming in late April in South Forest,Windsor Great Park.[32][33] Some test shooting had been done in St. Marks, Florida, but the vegetation in the area turned out to be too dense to give any depth perception on screen.[34] On May 9, 2016, cinematographerRob Hardy began sharing pictures from the set of the film.[35] On July 13 and 14, filming took place atHolkham Pines in North Norfolk.[36] Shooting was completed that month.[4]
The visual effects team was made up of many of Garland's collaborators from his previous film,Ex Machina, including VFX supervisor Andrew Whitehurst, main visual effects companyDNEG and Milk VFX, plus special makeup effects by Tristan Versluis.[37]
Due to a poorly receivedtest screening,David Ellison, a financier and producer atSkydance, became concerned that the film was "too intellectual" and "too complicated", and demanded changes to make it appeal to a wider audience, including making Portman's character more sympathetic, and changing the ending. Producer Scott Rudin sided with the director, who did not want to alter the film. Rudin, who hadfinal cut privilege, defended the film and refused to take notes from Ellison.[4]
On December 7, 2017, it was announced that, due to the clashes between Rudin and Ellison, and the shift in Paramount's leadership, a deal had been struck allowing Netflix to distribute the film internationally. According to this deal, Paramount would handle the American, Canadian, and Chinese release, while Netflix would begin streaming the film in other territories 17 days later.[4]
The film was released theatrically in the United States on February 23, 2018, by Paramount Pictures, and digitally in other markets on March 12, 2018, by Netflix.[38][39] Garland expressed his disappointment with the decision to coincide digital distribution with theatrical, saying, "We made the film for cinema."[40][41] On January 5, 2019, the film was released digitally on Netflix's competitorHulu.[42][43]
Annihilation was released onDigital HD on May 22, 2018, and onUltra HD Blu-ray,Blu-ray, andDVD on May 29.[44][45]
Annihilation grossed $32.7 million in the United States and Canada and $10.3 million in China, for a worldwide total of $43.1 million, against a production budget of $40–55 million.[1] While it did not amass much in terms of box office, the film found new life in home release, with some publications arguing it could become acult classic.[46][47]
In the United States, the film was released alongsideGame Night andEvery Day, and was projected to gross $10–12 million from 2,012 theaters during its opening weekend.[48] It made $3.9 million on its first day (including $900,000 from Thursday night previews at 1,850 theaters), and ended up making $11 million over the weekend, finishing fourth, behindBlack Panther,Game Night, andPeter Rabbit.[3] Its second weekend, the film dropped 49% to $5.9 million, falling to 6th place.[49]
On filmreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 331 reviews, and an average score of 7.7/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Annihilation backs up its sci-fi visual wonders and visceral genre thrills with an impressively ambitious—and surprisingly strange—exploration of challenging themes that should leave audiences pondering long after the end credits roll."[50] OnMetacritic, the film has aweighted average score of 79 out of 100 based on reviews from 51 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[51] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, andPostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 71% overall positive score.[3]
Richard Roeper of theChicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars, praising it for taking risks, and saying: "Kudos to Garland and the cast, but bravo to Scott Rudin as well. Apparently you knew a masterpiece when you saw it, and you made sure we were able to see it as well."[52] Writing forRolling Stone,Peter Travers complimented the cast and Garland's writing and direction, giving the film three and a half stars out of four, and saying: "Garland need make no apologies forAnnihilation. It's a bracing brainteaser with the courage of its own ambiguity. You work out the answers in your own head, in your own time, in your own dreams, where the best sci-fi puzzles leave things."[53]The Economist described the film as "tightrope-walking the fine line between open-ended, mind-expanding mystery and lethargic, pretentious twaddle", but praised its final half hour.[54]
As part of his annual end-of-year list of favorite songs, books, and movies, former United States PresidentBarack Obama listedAnnihilation as one of his favorite films of 2018.[55]
Critics have referred to the film as asci-fihorror thriller,[56][57][58] and some have said that this combination defies traditional genres and makes it part of theNew Weird.[59][60]
In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition ofThe New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 289.[61]
... the production budget, which is in the $55 million range ...
Annihilation is a 40 million dollar film
In this [adaptation] instance it was like an adaptation of the atmosphere.
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