Writer-director Alex Garland has one of the most successful collaborations in the business with A24; he’s now directing the biggest movie for both himself and the indie distributor, the video game adaptation Elden Ring. Garland and A24’s professional partnership began over a decade ago with the sci-fi movie Ex Machina, which emerged as a critical darling and grossed nearly $40 million worldwide. They went on to work together on the horror movie Men, the dystopian thriller Civil War, and the anti-war film Warfare. However, Garland’s sophomore feature as director wasn’t with A24.
He seemingly took a bigger deal and a larger budget from Paramount, but the decision didn’t entirely pan out as he’d have liked, with the movie in question being offloaded by the studio and released internationally on Netflix. This was during the same time as Paramount sold distribution rights to The Cloverfield Paradox to Netflix as well. Some years later, when the pandemic hit, Paramount offloaded several more movies to streamers — The Tomorrow War and Coming 2 America being two major examples. Garland’s movie was deemed too esoteric to warrant a global theatrical release, although it did rather well at the domestic box office — well enough that audiences criticized the decision not to give it a wide theatrical release.
Here’s How Long You Have Left To Watch ‘Annihilation’ on Paramount+
We’re talking, of course, about Annihilation. Starring Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, and others, the movie was released theatrically in the United States in 2018. It grossed around $32 million domestically and another $10 million in China, for a total global haul of $42 million against a reported budget of approximately $50 million. Annihilation proved to be highly divisive among critics and audiences, with people debating its deeper meanings and its climax. The movie holds a “Certified Fresh” 88% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Annihilation backs up its sci-fi visual wonders and visceral genre thrills with an impressively ambitious — and surprisingly strange — exploration of challenging themes that should leave audiences pondering long after the end credits roll.” The movie is currently streaming on Paramount+ domestically, but only until May 1. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
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February 23, 2018
- Runtime
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115 Minutes
- Director
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Alex Garland
