Oscar Isaac and Alex Garland had so much fun making Ex Machina, they’re teaming up again! According to Tracking Board, Isaac has signed on for Garland’s adaptation of Annihilation, the first installment in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy. He joins Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, and Tessa Thompson.
While the main cast has now been set, not all of the roles have been announced. Portman is playing the biologist, who also acts as the narrator as the Southern Reach’s twelfth expedition makes its way into the untamed, dangerous Area X. According to IMDb, Leigh will play the psychologist, the de facto leader of the group; not surprising, considering her critically lauded turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful Eight last year. Thompson and Rodriguez will play the anthropologist and the surveyer, though it’s unclear which is which.
Seeing as there’s only one major male character in the novel, Isaac is most likely playing the biologist’s husband, who we get to know through a series of flashbacks via the biologist’s journal, as well as other materials she uncovers. The synopsis adds some more mystery:
The story centers around a biologist (Portman) who, in seeking answers to her husband’s tragic disappearance volunteers for a government expedition into an area sealed off as an environmental disaster zone. What she discovers, however, is pristine wilderness, and a mysterious dark force within it.
Please say this means they’re writing in a bizarre yet entrancing disco dance break.
Annihilation will begin shooting this spring in London, with a projected release sometime in 2017.
