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Movie Review: ‘Civil War’

Tony Schaab - Senior Editor — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 16:40:28 +0000

What if. It’s a question that has intrigued storytellers and audiences alike for generations. The desire to take something known and twist it ever so slightly, to the point where elements and pieces are not immediately recognizable – or worse, things are chillingly recognizable and seemingly appropriate in their darker state. The thought of “yes, I could see something like this happening” is perhaps one of the scariest story premises out there – especially when what we’re being presented with is dark and dangerous. Such is the case with ‘Civil War,’ the new film from director Alex Garland and production studio A24. Taking place in the indeterminately-near future, the political and socio-economical divide in the United States of America has grown to the point where the country has fractured, with several states deciding to try their own hand at self-governance. A few maps shown early in the film indicate that close to 20 states may be trying to secede in various ways. Factions such as the “Florida Alliance” and the “New People’s Army” have arisen, but the two largest proponents have joined forces to create the “Western Forces,” and in a large-yet-subtle twist, it’s California and Texas, of all the […]

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“Nothing Ever Happens Without A Reason” In The First ‘Devs’ Trailer

Stuart Conover — Fri, 10 Jan 2020 19:51:13 +0000

Fans of Alex Garland‘s work have been dying to see his upcoming FX series ‘Devs.’ Details are scarce, even with this new trailer, but it looks to be a fun science fiction take on a murder-mystery. The trailer was released at the recent Television Critics Association meeting and online shortly after. For what we can expect on the show, the trailer you are about to see also came with the following details: Devs follows the story of a young software engineer, Lily Chan, who investigates the secretive development division of her employer, which she believes is behind her boyfriend’s murder. Devs stars Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Zach Grenier, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny, and Alison Pill. The new limited series is produced by FX Productions. You can check out the first full ‘Devs’ Season 1 trailer below: As this new series is clearly meant to be a mystery, it should come as no surprise that the trailer doesn’t give us any real details to go on and has us asking more questions. For a murder mystery created by Garland, we probably shouldn’t expect anything less! The cast of the main characters for this series announced by FX […]

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Alex Garland Will Not Be Back To Write Or Direct Any Future ‘Judge Dredd’ Projects

Jax Motes — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 19:05:51 +0000

2012’s ‘Dredd’ based on the British comic book ‘Judge Dredd’ was written by Alex Garland who went on to direct the acclaimed ‘Ex Machina‘. Garland has expressed that ‘Dredd’ was conceived as the first entry in a trilogy, but after it flopped at the box office, those plans were scuttled. Even though the film didn’t do well, it was well-liked by those that saw it, and that fanbase has been hoping for a follow-up. Last year, media company Rebellion announced plans to make more ‘Judge Dredd’ movies, and a TV series, ‘Mega-City One’ has also been in the works. There was reportedly a lot of turmoil on the set of ‘Dredd’, and star Karl Urban has stated that Garland actually directed the movie, not Pete Travis who was given credit, but due to a clause in Travis’ contract, Travis was guaranteed to receive credit and news of his termination (which reportedly came very early into production) would not be made public. (Travis apparently has a reputation for being fired from projects, but thanks to this clause, it is never reported and he still receives credit.) RELATED: According To Karl Urban, Alex Garland Was The Real Director Of ‘Dredd’ […]

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Alex Garland Explains Why He Abandoned Films For TV With ‘Devs’

Jax Motes — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 16:30:43 +0000

Filmmaker Alex Garland was on hand at New York Comic Con, along with cast members of his new FX miniseries ‘Devs’, to promote the new project which is coming to FX next year. Garland has distinguished himself in a short period of time, thanks to his unique voice, which was displayed in his cinematic directing debut ‘Ex Machina‘, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Unfortunately, Garland’s voice may have been too unique for Hollywood to understand. ‘Ex Machina’ was made for Universal and Focus Features, who decided they didn’t want to release it. Instead, smaller studio A24 released it. And even after ‘Ex Machina’ struck gold, Paramount decided it didn’t want to release his second picture, ‘Annihilation’. Instead it was sold to Netflix, however after some finagling, ‘Annihilation’ was given a theatrical release in North America, where it flopped. RELATED: Danny Boyle And Alex Garland Have “A Wonderful Idea” For A ’28 Months Later’ Movie During the ‘Devs’ NYCC panel, Garland lamented: “It’s basically been every film I’ve ever worked on. I just got sick of it… I thought maybe [film] isn’t the right space for me. Basically, it’s not mainstream. […]

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NYCC 2019: The First Trailer For ‘Devs’ Is Out

Stuart Conover — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 00:59:32 +0000

The New York Comic Con 2019 panel for ‘Devs’ previewed a trailer for FX’s upcoming series as well as revealed a slew of new details for the show. One of the main new things is that this series will only have an 8-episode limited-run which will launch in the Spring of 2020. Showrunner Alex Garland is joined by executive producer Allon Reich and stars Sonoya Mizuno, Jin Ha, Cailee Spaeny, Karl Glusman, and Alison Pill. Check out the “Ring Teaser” for ‘Devs’ right here: Devs follows the story of a young software engineer, Lily Chan, who investigates the secretive development division of her employer which she believes is behind her boyfriend’s murder. The clip features Sonoya Mizuno as Lily and Nick Offerman as Forest and gives us an introduction to their characters in ‘Devs.’ We’ve also been given the official synopsis that shares more details about the series: ‘Devs’ is a limited series that focuses on a young software engineer named Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) who works for Amaya, a cutting-edge tech company based in Silicon Valley. After her boyfriend’s apparent suicide, Lily suspects foul play and begins to investigate. She quickly realizes that all roads lead to Forest […]

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Danny Boyle And Alex Garland Have “A Wonderful Idea” For A ’28 Months Later’ Movie

Jax Motes — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 23:14:02 +0000

Arriving in 2002, Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’ was a revolutionary zombie film. Not only did it help reinvigorate the genre as a whole, but it gave it a dynamic twist by making the zombies fast-moving, almost animalistic creatures, not the slow, shambling creatures from earlier flicks. The film won a number of accolades, including Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards, and the Best British Film Empire Award. Boyle directed, with a screenplay by Alex Garland. But while Boyle executive produced the sequel, ’28 Weeks Later’, neither he nor Garland, took a direct role. Both Boyle and Garland have gone on to greater success. Boyle won an Academy Award in 2009 for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and was nominated in 2011 for ‘127 Hours’. Garland, who has begun directing his own movies, was nominated for the screenplay for 2016’s ‘Ex Machina‘. RELATED: According To Karl Urban, Alex Garland Was The Real Director Of ‘Dredd’ But it’s possible that the pair will reunite for a new sequel to ’28 Days Later’, called either ’28 Months’ or ’28 Years Later’… provided Garland can find the time. In an interview with The Independent, Boyle teased: “Alex Garland and I have a wonderful […]

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Karl Urban Says It’s Been Years Since He Spoke To Anyone About A Follow-Up To ‘Dredd’

Jax Motes — Wed, 01 May 2019 19:57:29 +0000

Hot off the success of the first ‘Star Trek’ movie, Karl Urban, who played Dr. “Bones” McCoy, took the lead role in ‘Dredd’ a cinematic reboot of the gritty ’80s comic book series. Even though ‘Dredd’ tanked at the box office, there were rumblings that a sequel would still be delivered, as well as a spinoff TV series ‘Judge Dredd: Mega-City One’. But there hasn’t been much buzz on either in quite some time. And according to Urban, those projects may be dead, although he reiterated that he’d be up to return, should things get moving. Speaking to JoBlo.com, Urban said: “I really don’t know much. I had a couple of preliminary meetings… gotta be a couple of years ago now, so it’s a long-gestating project. I’ve gone on record saying if I had the opportunity to get back in that world and explore more stories I’d be down for it. It’s crazy, it’s been a few years since that movie came out and one of the most commonly asked questions I get is, when is Dredd 2?” In November, it was reported that a newly formed production studio, Rebellion, had been created to produce ‘Mega-City One’, and that a […]

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Should I Check Out…: ‘Annihilation’

Tony Schaab - Senior Editor — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 19:11:30 +0000

Welcome to ‘Should I Check Out…” a new weekly column here at ScienceFiction.com dedicated to giving you the scoop on recent TV series, movies, games, novels, comic books, and more – entertainment that you may not have heard of or may not have had the chance to explore yet. We’ll explain a bit about what the property is, what you might get out of it, and what you might not know about it, so you can be armed with more knowledge as you ask yourself the question: should I check out this stuff… or not? Take a look at what we’re writing about this week, and if you’ve already checked it out, let us know in the Comments section below what you think about it! When it bounced around multiple release dates before finally falling on the schedule for a February 2018 theatrical release, the general assumption was that ‘Annihilation,’ the sci-fi film directed by Alex Garland and based on the Jeff Van Der Meer book of the same name, didn’t earn the confidence of distribution company Paramount of being a “good” film that would please audiences. Indeed, Paramount execs asked for the film’s tone to be made lighter […]

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FX Officially Orders Alex Garland’s ‘Devs’

Stuart Conover — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 18:29:36 +0000

We know that FX had ordered a pilot for ‘Devs‘ earlier this year and now it sounds like the network loves what they ended up seeing! Alex Garland has delivered some great films with both ‘Ex Machina‘ and ‘Annihilation‘ so it will be interesting to see what he is able to do with an ongoing television series. Outside of the series order, we’ve also gotten confirmation on the cast which will include: Sonoya Mizuno (‘Ex Machina’,’Maniac’), Nick Offerman (‘Fargo’,’Parks and Recreation’), Jin Ha (‘Jesus Christ Superstar Live’), Zach Grenier (‘The Good Wife’,’Deadwood’), Stephen McKinley Henderson (‘Ladybird’), Cailee Spaeny (‘Bad Times at the El Royale’), and Alison Pill (‘American Horror Story: Cult’,’Snowpiercer’). The show has Offerman playing Forest who is the CEO of Amaya which is a tech company and he will have an obsession about what the company’s development division is covertly putting together. Grenier is playing Kenton who is described as “dry and dangerous” and the head of security for the company. Henderson plays Stewart who is “a cultured intellectual from another era and one of the top technical minds working in Amaya’s secret development division.” Spaeny is taking the role of Lyndon who is an employee in this […]

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Alex Garland Won’t Return To Direct ‘Annihilation’ Sequel

Tony Schaab - Senior Editor — Thu, 31 May 2018 17:30:55 +0000

When it bounced around multiple release dates before finally falling on the schedule for a February 2018 theatrical release, the general assumption was that ‘Annihilation,’ the sci-fi film directed by Alex Garland and based on the Jeff Van Der Meer book of the same name, didn’t earn the confidence of distribution company Paramount of being a “good” film that would please audiences. Indeed, Paramount execs asked for the film’s tone to be made lighter and the ending to be changed, following a poor test screening, but producer Scott Rudin defended Garland and the film, and no changes were made. In response, Paramount elected to release the film theatrically only in the United States and Canada, and struck a deal with Netflix to distribute the movie worldwide elsewhere. ‘Annihilation’ essentially broke even at the box office, making $42 million against a reported budget of $40 million – but the film received high praise from critics and audiences alike. This sort of favorable reception usually bodes well for the idea of a sequel for a movie, but it’s possible that Garland’s experience with Paramount soured the director on wanting to return; this, in addition to the fact he has never been a […]

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FX Orders ‘Devs’ Pilot From Alex Garland

Jax Motes — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 14:10:19 +0000

FX has ordered a pilot for a series called ‘Devs’ from Alex Garland, the writer/director of the hit sci fi thriller ‘Ex-Machina’ and the recent release ‘Annihilation’. Garland will write and direct the pilot and executive produce with DNA TV and Scott Rudin Productions. Here is a description of ‘Devs’: A young computer engineer, Lily, investigates the secretive development division of her employer, a cutting-edge tech company based in San Francisco, which she believes is behind the disappearance of her boyfriend. President of Original Programming for FX Networks and FX Productions, Eric Schrier said: “Devs is a captivating series from Alex Garland, building on his track record of groundbreaking work that challenges our notion of humanity amid the seemingly boundless promise of technology. We’re all the more thrilled that Alex will direct and executive produce with our partners at DNA TV and Scott Rudin Productions.” According to Garland, ‘Devs’ will be an eight-part series. As Garland stated in February, “If they want to carry it on, I guess they could do, it’s a self-contained story though. But there’s ways you could carry it on.” According to Garland, “It’s already written [and] my plan at the moment is to direct the eight episodes, […]

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According To Karl Urban, Alex Garland Was The Real Director Of ‘Dredd’

Stuart Conover — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 18:32:44 +0000

While a flop at the box office, the 2012 release of ‘Dredd’ has a cult following and most who view the movie has offered praise to it. The film itself lists Pete Travis as the director though now we seem to have confirmation that Alex Garland was responsible for most of the movie. The details have come directly from Karl Urban himself, and if anyone knows who directed him while filming shots, you would think it would be the star of the film. According to Urban: “I would love to have the opportunity to play Dredd again, but if it doesn’t happen, then I’m happy with the fact that we’ve made a film that has become a cult classic and that people have discovered over time. A huge part of the success of Dredd is in fact due to Alex Garland and what a lot of people don’t realize is that Alex Garland actually directed that movie.” This is something that has been talked about for quite some time so isn’t exactly news, but there have long been rumors that Garland did more for the movie than Travis did. In fact, it was also rumored that the credited director wasn’t […]

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According To Alex Garland, Filming ‘Annihilation ‘ “Was Unpleasant”

Stuart Conover — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 23:15:56 +0000

While ‘Ex Machina’ wasn’t a pain for Alex Garland to create, it sounds as if ‘Annihilation’ was both “unpleasant” and “tough” to complete. That isn’t too surprising as the movie did end up leaning heavily on practical effects and was shot throughout the British countryside near Windsor. The movie itself follows Natalie Portman who is ex-military and a biologist who is leading a five-person team into “the Shimmer” which is an area that has been taken over by what appears to be an extraterrestrial presence. The world inside of the Shimmer isn’t the Earth as we know and is almost dream-like in nature. Making the movie was an exhausting experience for the director. In fact, he was so tired at the end of each day he doesn’t believe that he was dreaming of the Shimmer saying, “I can’t even remember what I was dreaming. I think I was just out like a light!” As to the movie being difficult? Garland was happy to complain about that: “It was unpleasant because it was so difficult. It was just so difficult. Ex Machina, for example, was a much cheaper film, it was $15 million, instead of $40 million. But on a day-by-day […]

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Alex Garland Is Heading To The Small Screen With ‘Devs’

Stuart Conover — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 21:58:33 +0000

With Alex Garland (‘Ex Machina’) about to release ‘Annihilation‘ on the big screen, he already has an idea of what he’ll be tackling after this adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer‘s award-winning novel. Instead of sticking to theater releases, we’re going to see the famed director head to the small screen, specifically to FX! The show is tentatively titled ‘Devs’ and is an eight-episode TV series that will explore “technology-based sci-fi.” The name of ‘Devs’ isn’t set in stone at this point as it is only a working title but one can imagine we’ll be hearing more about it pretty soon. He did share that it is short for “Developers” which combined with an unofficial logline will give you an idea of what to expect. Of the series, Garland says: “It’s about a particular aspect of technology at the moment which is to do with very, very big data and very powerful processing power, and what can happen when you put those two things together. It’s set in San Francisco, a sort of tech story.” We know that it is set to be an eight-episode series, but after the initial season Garland currently doesn’t have plans to expand upon it but doesn’t […]

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‘Annihilation’ Accused Of White-Washing Its Casting; Director Alex Garland Responds

Tony Schaab - Senior Editor — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 16:00:39 +0000

Falling into controversy just weeks ahead of its opening, the forthcoming film ‘Annihilation’ is being accused of white-washing its cast by two different advocacy groups. The two organizations – the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) and the American Indians in Film and Television – have both released individual statements surrounding the casting of two roles. It’s important to note, however, that the ‘Annihilation’ novel does not specify anything about any of the character’s ethnicities; these details are only created and addressed in subsequent books in the series. The Biologist, portrayed by Natalie Portman in the film, was described in the ‘Annihilation’ sequel novel ‘Authority’ as being of Asian descent; the Psychologist, portrayed by Jennifer Jason Leigh in the film, was also described in ‘Authority’ as being half-American Indian/half-Caucasian. (The characters in the original novel were also not given names, only ever addressed by their job titles.) MANAA board member Alieesa Badreshia said in a statement: “Writer/director Alex Garland is not being true and honest to the characters in the book. He exploits the story but fails to take advantage of the true identities of each character. Hollywood rarely writes prominent parts for Asian American and American Indian characters, […]

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