It was announced last fall that Alex Garland, the writer and director behind the critically-acclaimed (and now playing) Ex Machina, had signed on to direct Paramount Pictures’ upcoming futuristic gothic horror adaptation Annihilation, based on the first part of novelist Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” trilogy. Today, Variety has an update, revealing that Academy Award winner Natalie Portman is in talks to headline.
Annihilation, 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 and producer Scott Rudin (also a producer on Ex Machina) acquired movie rights to the entire 2014 trilogy last year. “Annihilation” published in March, was followed by “Authority” in May and “Acceptance” in September.
Portman can be seen coming up in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups and in Gavin O’Connor’s Jane Got a Gun. She also recently wrote, directed and starred in A Tale of Love and Darkness, based on Amoz Oz’s memoir about working as a journalist covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
