Annihilation (film)

At a U.S. government's secret facility Area X, cellular biology professor and former soldier Lena is questioned as the sole survivor of an expedition to an anomalous zone known as "the Shimmer". Three years prior, the Shimmer emerged from a meteor that landed inside a lighthouse on the southern coast, and is gradually expanding its boundaries. Lena's husband Kane, a member of Army Special Forces, reappears at their home after a year of absence, unable to explain where he was or how he came back. His condition quickly deteriorates and Lena calls an ambulance, but they are intercepted by security forces and taken to the secret facility. With Kane in intensive care, psychologist Dr. Ventress shows Lena the Shimmer, and explains that many exploratory teams have entered, but only Kane has ever returned. Ventress prepares a new scientific expedition into the Shimmer, joined by Lena, physicist Josie Radek, geomorphologist Cassie "Cass" Sheppard, and paramedic Anya Thorensen.

The group enters the Shimmer, and Lena has a vision of her past affair with a colleague. When the group awakens, they find their communication and navigation equipment does not function, and conclude that three to four days have passed, but they do not remember anything after entering the Shimmer. They encounter mutated plants and animals, and Josie is attacked by an albino alligator with rows of shark-like teeth. At an abandoned military base, they find a video message from Kane's expedition, showing him cut open another soldier’s abdomen to reveal his slithering intestines. The group finds the soldier's corpse, now an overgrown colony of lichens.

At night, the base is attacked by a mutant bear that drags Cass away, and the group later finds her mutilated body. Reaching an abandoned village, they discover plants that have taken on human-like forms. Josie theorizes that the Shimmer functions as a prism for DNA, distorting and transforming everything within its boundaries, including the group’s own bodies. Anya, overcome with paranoia after watching her fingerprints change, ties up the others and accuses Lena of murdering Cass. The bear lures Anya away by emitting a cry for help in Cass' voice, and kills Anya, while Josie frees herself and shoots the bear dead.

Ventress, who has terminal cancer and is determined to confront the Shimmer’s source, leaves alone for the lighthouse. Josie and Lena realize the Shimmer’s “refractions” are already inside their bodies; Josie believes Cass' dying mind was "refracted" into the bear, and herself refracts into plant form. Lena, believing that Kane accepted the suicide mission into the Shimmer because she cheated on him, reaches the lighthouse and discovers his remains and a videocamera. In the footage, Kane tells the man filming to find Lena, and commits suicide with an incendiary grenade; the other man is revealed to be a doppelgänger of Kane.

Lena descends into the hole created by the meteor and finds Ventress, who tells her the forces at work will spread to encompass everything. Ventress disintegrates into a glowing nebulous structure that absorbs a drop of blood from Lena's face, creating a humanoid entity that mimics Lena's motions. Unable to escape the entity as it mirrors her, Lena hands it a phosphorus grenade, and it transforms into an identical copy of her. Lena activates the grenade and flees from the lighthouse, but the creature does not follow. Set ablaze by the grenade, the creature affectionately touches Kane's burned body before crawling back into the hole and igniting the core of the lighthouse. Lena watches as the constructs of the Shimmer collapse, and it fades away.

At the facility, Lena’s interviewer reveals that Kane has recovered after the Shimmer vanished. Lena visits him, and asks if he is really Kane; he replies, "I don't think so". He asks if she is Lena, and she does not answer. Kane embraces Lena, and their irises shimmer.

• Natalie Portman as Lena
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dr. Ventress
• Gina Rodriguez as Anya Thorensen
• Tessa Thompson as Josie Radek
• Tuva Novotny as Cassie “Cass” Sheppard
• Oscar Isaac as Kane
• Benedict Wong as Lomax
• Sonoya Mizuno as Katie
  • Mizuno also portrays the Humanoid
• David Gyasi as Daniel
• Sammy Hayman as Mayer
• Josh Danford as Shelley

In March 2013, it was announced that Paramount Pictures and Scott Rudin Productions had acquired the film rights to Annihilation, the first novel in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy,[8] and that the film would be produced by Scott Rudin and Eli Bush.[8] Alex Garland was hired to adapt and direct the film the next year.[9]

Due to a poorly received test screening, David Ellison, a financier and producer at Skydance, 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 had final cut privilege, defended the film and refused to take notes from Ellison.[3]

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 was 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.[3]

Prior to its release, the film drew criticism for the casting of Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as characters who are, in the later books, described as Asian and of half Native American descent, respectively.[29] Garland stated that none of the five female characters' ethnicity is mentioned in the first book, which was the only one of the trilogy that had been published when the script was completed. He cast the characters based on his reaction only to the actors he had met in the casting process, or actors he had worked with before.[30][14][31]

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.[6][32] Garland expressed his disappointment with the decision to coincide digital distribution with theatrical, saying, "We made the film for cinema."[33][34] On January 5, 2019, the film was released digitally on Netflix's competitor Hulu.[35][36]

Annihilation was released on Digital HD on May 22, 2018, and on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD on May 29, 2018.[37][38]

• Color Out of Space (film), a 2019 science fiction horror film that also features an intelligent shimmering entity that mutates the DNA of Earthlings to survive.

• Annihilation on IMDb
• Annihilation at AllMovie
• Annihilation at Rotten Tomatoes