EW shared this first look at Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta, Black Swan) in Ex Machina director Alex Garland‘s Annihilation.
Portman plays a scientist named Lena, who is part of an expedition tasked with exploring an area which has been taken over by a mysterious force. “[She] finds a very strange, dream-like, surrealist landscape, and goes deeper and deeper into that world, and also into that mindset,” Garland told the site.
Jennifer Jason Leigh (Amityville: The Awakening, The Hateful Eight, “Twin Peaks”), Tuva Novotny, Gina Rodriguez, and Tessa Thompson (Creed, When a Stranger Calls) costar as her fellow team members, while Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) plays Portman’s husband.
“It is their first tangible encounter with something strange,” adds Garland, referring to the photo of Portman inspecting an alligator. “The alligator has physical elements to it that should not belong on an alligator. They’re starting to get their heads around how weird the place is.”
Paramount will release it in theaters on February 23, 2018, the same day as CBS Films’ horror pic Winchester.
The film is an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer novel for Garland and Paramount Pictures, which has Scott Rudin producing.
Left to right: Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson in ANNIHILATION, from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.