News

First Trailer for Jeff VanderMeer’s ANNIHILATION Adaptation

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Yaika Sabat

Staff Writer

Yaika Sabat spends her days as a library assistant in Texas. Raised by Puerto Ricans and German Shepherds, her background is as diverse as her writing. Her favorite things include comics, books, challenging the idea that comics are an inherently male space, Doctor Who, her cats, and puns. When she's not contributing to Book Riot, you can catch her at her blog, Glasses Attached. Twitter: @yikesyaika

For any and all sci-fi fans out there, 2018 is starting with a bang. Alex Garland, writer and director of the much-lauded Ex-Machina, is adapting Jeff VanderMeer’s AnnihilationThe movie opens February 23, 2018.

And today we have the teaser trailer for Annihilation. 

What’s annihilation about?

The book focuses on a four female scientists who go to go out to explore an unknown area (in the book it is called Area X). They are the 12th group to be go. The 11th group included the husband of one of these women. The other expeditions, as you may have guessed, have not gone smoothly.

In the film, the group head out to an environmental disaster zone to locate the husband who went on the previous expedition. It sounds like the plot is sticking fairly close to the book. Although we won’t really know until the movie comes out.

The films stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, and Tessa Thompson. Oscar Isaac, who was fantastically unsettling in Ex-Machina and oh so charming in Star-Wars, will be playing Portman’s husband.

I’d like to take a moment to point out that the film’s lead team is made up of two women of color. I’m counting that as a win for representation. And those women happen to be Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez, so it’s really just a win all around.

The film is being described as beautiful, weird, and surreal. All of this seems fitting for a sci-fi book about exploring an unknown land. VanderMeer has even dropped some Kubrick comparisons. So all in all, it sounds interesting.

first looks

The first official image went up yesterday. In it, we have Portman’s biologist character (below) looking at a seriously weird looking alligator. You can also see Tessa Thompson in the background.

The teaser trailer went up this morning. And it does, indeed, look beautiful and surreal. It also looks intense. I’ll just say that based on the teaser, I’m in.

The book Annihilation is the first in a trilogy, but there has been no talk so far of further adaptations by Garland.

I’m excited about the film, and will definitely read the book before it comes out. What do you think?