Today marks the home video release of Ex Machina director Alex Garland’s Annihilation, now available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Natalie Portman-starring sci-fi/horror film was well received by critics even if it wasn’t a financial success, but it’s unquestionably the sort of movie that’s going to amass a huge fanbase in the years to come.
So then, would Garland ever be interested in returning to The Shimmer for a sequel? Speaking with Indiewire, Garland emphatically drove a stake into the heart of that one.
“I’ve got no objection to someone else doing that, but I’m not interested in the idea of a sequel,” Garland told the site. “I feel like we made this movie and this is the movie we made.”
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He continued, “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 conceptualize it as the start of a trilogy. Sequels are just not something I’m interested in doing. I just don’t do sequels.”
It’s worth noting that Jeff VanderMeer’s 2014 novel Annihilation, which the movie was based on, was the first novel in a series called The Southern Reach Trilogy.
