Science fiction film where horror meets philosophy (yes!), “Annihilation”, worn by Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac, is an intelligent and solid work signed by Alex Garland. To see on Netflix.
Moving away from futuristic Blade Runner-like propositions, Annihilation takes viewers to Zone X, where strange phenomena are observed by an expedition of scientists, including Lena (Natalie Portman). The latter volunteered to find out what happened to her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), a soldier who returned from the previous expedition with serious psychological and physical consequences.
Lena and her colleagues will also face Zone X and the mysteries it holds. Each of them suffers the consequences of the mutations of the area, invaded by an alien force that alters the different species…
The fate of Alex Garland’s work is quite upset. After his brilliance for his first solo production in 2014 with the formidable Ex Machina, he returned in 2018 with Annihilationa superb melancholy science fiction film where nature takes back its rights over human beings.
The Paramount studio, which produced the film, considered it too complicated, and asked the director to make the character of Natalie Portman more sympathetic and to modify the end of her film. The producer, Scott Rudin, supported Alex Garland against David Ellison, a Paramount financier, then in the midst of a change of direction.
However, a solution was found: the film will remain as it is and Paramount will take care of the theatrical release in the United States and China. A deal was signed with Netflix for the American platform to broadcast the film in the rest of the world 17 days after the official American release.
A release that was done on tiptoe in the land of Uncle Sam: barely more than 2000 screens…. Produced for 55 million dollars (even if other sources mention a budget of 40 million $), Annihilation only grossed 43 million. In other words, a scathing slap in the face at the international Box Office.
Paramount Pictures
Adaptation of the first part of a literary trilogy written by author Jeff VanderMeer and called The Southern Reach Trilogy, Annihilation is followed by Authority and D’acceptance; the three stories having been published a few months apart in 2014. Paramount had put an option on the literary saga the previous year, with a view to making it a trilogy. Which was therefore not the case.
In comments by Garland reported by the site IndieWire in 2018at the time of the film’s release, the filmmaker had moreover swept away this idea of chaining these possible sequels himself. “I have no problem if someone directs them, but I’m not interested in the idea of a sequel.
As soon as I finish something, I instantly move on; so I don’t have an opinion on a sequel to Annihilation. From the start, I made it clear to everyone from the studio to the cast that I didn’t see it as part of a franchise. My goal was to make this movie and do it the best I can.”
And to drive the point home a bit more: “Sequels don’t interest me. It’s like when you don’t like meat, you don’t make the decision not to eat meat, you just don’t eat meat. I don’t do sequels. “. So close the ban.
So there remains this intelligent and singular work, which navigates between horror and philosophy, to be discovered on Netflix.