Paramount Pictures has released a new Annihilation trailer from Ex Machina writer/director Alex Garland.

Based on Jeff VanderMeer’s terrifying eco-horror novel of the same name (the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy) and starring Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the story follows the expedition of four women who are sent into the mysterious “Area X”, a portion of land in the USA that has been secretly quarantined due to abnormal activity. They are the 12th expedition sent into Area X on behalf of the mysterious Southern Reach organization. The second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as the members turned on one another and the 11th expedition returned as shells of their former selves, all dying of cancer shortly after coming back.

It looks spectacularly creepy in an almost Arrival-meets-Predator kind of way. It’s filled with lots of weird and unusual alien phenomena that give the team of crack scientists pretty good reason to be…terrified beyond belief.

And it opens in theatres on February 23, 2018.

Or at least it’s supposed to.

A few days ago, we reported that Paramount and Netflix are negotiating a deal that would give the international rights to Netflix and that Annihilation would only receive a “traditional” theatrical release in the US, Canada and China.

The movie had been set for a UK theatrical release on 23 February, the same day as the US. Presumably, if this deal goes through, that date will be pushed to 17 days after the American theatrical release as stated in the deal.

There’s been no comment from Netflix or Paramount on this subject at this time and even if it does happens, there is a slim chance of a limited theatrical release…and quite rightly so, given the talent both in front of and behind the camera. However, the idea that a film like this would make most of its theatrical take in the US, not internationally, makes a deal with Netflix very appealing.

Speaking to Collider, Garland said “We made the film for cinema. I’ve got no problem with the small screen at all. The best genre piece I’ve seen in a long time was The Handmaid’s Tale, so I think there’s incredible potential within that context, but if you’re doing that – you make it for that and you think of it in those terms. Look… it is what it is. The film is getting a theatrical release in the States, which I’m really pleased about. One of the big pluses of Netflix is that it goes out to a lot of people and you don’t have that strange opening weekend thing where you’re wondering if anyone is going to turn up and then if they don’t, it vanishes from cinema screens in two weeks. So it’s got pluses and minuses, but from my point of view and the collective of the people who made it – [it was made] to be seen on a big screen.”

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