The Wrap has learned that Tessa Thompson is in early talks to star in ANNIHILATION, director Alex Garland's adaptation of the Jeff VanderMeer novel of the same name. The CREED and DEAR WHITE PEOPLE actress is considering several other offers, but if Thompson does sign on, she'll be joining the previously cast Natalie Portman and Gina Rodriguez. Although there's no details on the role Thompson is up for, she's more than likely being eyed to play one of the four women who venture into Area X.
Book description from Amazon:
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third expedition in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one anotioner, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers―they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding―but it's the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.
I only just recently got around to seeing EX MACHINA, and while it was a little predictable, I still thought it was a great film, and I'm very interested in seeing what Garland will do with ANNIHILATION.
Production on ANNIHILATION is expected to kick off this spring, which means the sci-fi thriller will probably hit theaters late this year or sometime in 2017.