Director Alex Garland has often spoken of his disdain for sequels and it seems that his hit sci-fi Annihilation is not going to be the exception to the rule.
In an interview to promote the film’s DVD release, Garland told IndieWire that he has no plans to adapt the other books in Jeff VanderMeer’s ‘Southern Reach’ trilogy.
The first movie, which starred Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac, was buried by Paramount outside of the USA. It was released straight to Netflix, rather than giving it a marquee multiplex run.
Portman played a scientist who travels into a strange alien bubble in an attempt to work out what happened to her husband (Isaac), who recently became the only person to emerge from the place alive.
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The movie was a huge word of mouth hit and attracted some tremendous reviews, but none of this reaction has tempted Garland into continuing his story.
He said: “I’ve got no objection to someone else doing that, but I’m not interested in the idea of a sequel. I feel like we made this movie and this is the movie we made.”
SEE ALSO: Read our ★ ★ ★ ★ review of Annihilation
Garland has described his choice of projects as acting in opposition to whatever his last project was, which is not conducive to the process of making sequels.
He added: “When the thing is done, I am done with it. I instantly start moving on, so I don’t even have an opinion on an Annihilation sequel. All the way through I was clear with everyone, from the studio to the cast, I told everyone that I didn’t really see it as part of a franchise.
“My goal was to make this film and do the best job I can. I didn’t even conceptualise it as the start of a trilogy. Sequels are just not something I’m interested in doing. It’s like when you don’t like steak, you don’t make the decision not to eat steak, you just don’t eat steak. I just don’t do sequels.”
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Garland said he was “genuinely surprised” and “taken aback” by the positive reaction to the movie, as he had been told to expect that the film wouldn’t work for everyone.
