A comet hits a lighthouse and mutates everything around out. It is all being surrounded by the Shimmer. A group went in and only one came out, but he is not the same person he was before. There’s also the mystery to what happened to the rest of the group. A team of female scientists, Lena, Dr. Ventress, Anya Thorensen, Josie Radek and Cass Sheppard go in to study it and find out what happened to the last group.
Blaine: Alex Garland was given the book by one of the producers because he thought it was something Alex would go for and it was. Alex thought it was going to be a challenge to adapt “Annihilation” into a screenplay, but as he was reading through it he had these images inside his head of how this would look as a movie. Alex wrote down what he saw in his head and showed them to his concept artist, production designer and visual effects supervisor because the first thing he wanted as he was writing drafts for the script was to design the look of the film. Having actresses audition wasn’t necessary for this project because Alex had a list of women who he felt were suitable to play these characters. Natalie Portman was the first actress to be hired. Alex met with Natalie to talk about the project and after having a nice conversation with Alex and reading the script, she thought a sci-fi movie like this would really be something to make. Natalie was also happy that it was going to be a movie where she would be working with an ensemble of women. Alex felt that Natalie is an actress who can do anything and that’s why he wanted her.
Jennifer Jason Leigh was another actress on the list and like Natalie Portman, she was excited to be acting with a group of women. It was also interesting for Jennifer to be shooting a movie out in the forest while holding a rifle. Alex was very impressed with Jennifer and how she made her performance so original. Gina Rodriguez wanted to do something that was different compared to “Jane the Virgin”. Alex had seen some of Gina’s work and had her in mind for Anya Thorensen. Gina Rodriguez is good at transforming herself into someone else once the cameras start rolling. Her performance in “Annihilation” is so bad ass. Tessa Thompson has been getting around a lot. Tessa had seen “Ex Machina” and it made her want to be in a science fiction movie that is mixed with reality. She wasn’t expecting an opportunity like that to come to her so soon until she met Alex. Alex explained to Tessa what “Ex Machina” meant to him and what “Annihilation” could be like and she was dying to be apart of the project after that. Tessa does a good job at studying the character she is going to be playing. She asked Alex several questions about what he wanted to see in Josie and he explained everything to her.
Tuva Novotny was the last woman on the list. Tuva is very hyper when it comes to acting because she loves it so much and it’s amazing because I think of her character, Cass, as someone calm judging by what I’ve seen. If Tuva saw herself in a take they just did and she didn’t like it then she would do everything she could to make it better for another take. Alex wanted Oscar Issac, who he had worked with on “Ex Machina”, to play Kane, Lena’s husband. Problem was Oscar was too busy doing “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and it was unclear if he would have time to do “Annihilation”. It didn’t require much because it’s a small role. Rian Johnson, the director of “The Last Jedi” was nice enough to rearrange Oscar’s schedule so that he could do “Annihilation”. Oscar would be going back and forth from “The Last Jedi” to “Annihilation”. Oscar wasn’t tired at all because he loved being apart of two different projects.
Alex was thinking about shooting “Annihilation” in Louisiana, but then he saw photos of a swamp area in Windsor, England and it had more of what Alex was looking for. One of the location scouts saw a hut (a small house) and half of it had sunk into the swamp. She took a picture of the hut and showed it to Alex and he thought it looked cool. So the production team created their own hut in the swamps of Windsor, but this one was at a different angle compared to the one on the photo. They had to dig out a section five meters square so they could put their water tank in and build the hut.
Tessa Thompson’s character gets pulled into the swamp water inside the hut by a giant white alligator during that scene. Alex wasn’t sure if Tessa was up for the challenge or not, but she was up for anything. Tessa never complained once while being in that cold water all day to shoot that scene. Wires would pull her back and she would be wearing a heavy backpack trying to get out of the water. The stunt team was very helpful to Tessa while she was rehearsing that scene in a tank full of warm water. They made a few different versions of that alligator. There was one made out of rubber that would go into the water just so the visual effects department could see it’s interaction with the water when it goes in. It would be impossible to add a digital alligator into that footage if they didn’t have an example first. Another one was an animatronic of the head made to pop out of the water for when it goes after the girls. Once they started shooting and that thing popped out the girls jumped because it scared them. The last version of the alligator was for when it is dead and they open up it’s jaw to examine it. A lot of detail was added to that one to make it look life like. The other two versions would be digitally replaced, but the dead version didn’t need to be. Alex waned things to be as real as possible.
Alex looked up a lot of diseased animals online and the concept artists did drawings of a bear, a wolf and a wild boar. One of the concept artists did a drawing of some skulls mixed together with a bear’s and that’s what Alex wanted for the creature. The bear is losing a lot of it’s hair, it has human teeth inside it’s mouth and it’s mutation is causing it pain. They made an animatronic of the bear’s head for shots when you see close ups of it’s face. It was scary for the actresses to be in a scene with that thing, but it also helped them react to something that was actually there. Other times, the bear was a stuntman in a black suit for when it attacks Gina Rodriguez. Gina did her own stunts in that scene because she’s the type of person who likes to try new things. Gina got picked up by the stuntman, got slammed against the wall, got tossed around and dragged down the stairs. She felt achy after doing all of that physical stuff.
Towards the end, Natalie Portman has to face a humanoid (an alien trying to replicate a person) that is copying all her movements and is blocking the exit. Sonoya Mizuno had worked with Alex Garland on “Ex Machina” and she had two roles in “Annihilation”. She plays a student in Natalie’s classroom at the beginning of the film and she also plays the humanoid. Sonoya had to wear a black suit as well. Sonya is a ballerina and she’s very good with how she moves. Alex Garland gives a lot of credit to the people who helped him bring “Annihilation” to life. He said it’s not just his movie it’s a movie done by the people who worked on it. Alex Garland is one of the smartest screenwriters out there and he’s also one those directors with an artistic approach. He’s really good with how everything in the movie should look. “Ex Machina” had a lot of details and “Annihilation” has a lot of details as well.
My rating “Annihilation” is five out of five stars.
