Alex Garland's Ex Machina was quietly one of the best movies of 2014 and is among one of the best sci-fi films of the 2000s. Having previously written cult classics 28 Days Later and Sunshine, Garland's directorial debut came at a perfect time for the genre, when the likes of Her, Gravity, Inception, and Arrival are becoming award-caliber sci-fi movies.
Garland's follow-up to Ex Machina is an adaptation of Annihilation, the first book in Jeff VanderMeer's best-selling Southern Reach Trilogy. The book follows four women scientists as they explore Area X, an isolated region where 11 previous expeditions have ended in disaster. Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Oscar Isaac (of Ex Machina), the first trailer proves Garland has a much bigger budget to work with on Annihilation. We see Portman and co. exploring vast, alien worlds, and getting tracked, slasher style, through mysterious forests. And it looks like a fantastic inclusion to prestige sci-fi films.
