Ex Machina And Annihilation Director Returns To Sci-Fi With Civil War Trailer

After directing a trifecta of progressively weirder genre films — "Ex Machina," "Annihilation," and "Men" — Alex Garland is delivering another vision of a possible future with his upcoming sci-fi film "Civil War." Produced by acclaimed indie studio A24, "Civil War" has been described by Garland as a "companion piece to 'Men' in some ways." The cast includes Kirsten Dunst ("The Power of the Dog"), Wagner Moura ("Narcos"), Sonoya Mizuno ("House of the Dragon"), Cailee Spaeny ("Priscilla"), and Stephen McKinley Henderson ("Dune").

Though Garland has been cagey with plot details in the lead-up to this trailer release, he did reveal that "Civil War" is "set at an indeterminate point in the future — just far enough ahead for me to add a conceit." He also told The Telegraph that the film is a sci-fi allegory for the increasingly sharp political divides in society, and warned that it's "going to wind some people up." The recently released poster depicts the Statue of Liberty's torch converted into a sniper nest, which is a somewhat impractical vantage point but makes for a striking image.

"Civil War" will be Garland's first film to receive an IMAX release, a format that A24 has recently begun exploring with releases like "Beau is Afraid" and re-releases like Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense" and Darren Aronofsky's "Pi." Check out the first trailer for "Civil War" above.

Before he made his directing debut with "Ex Machina," Garland was best known as the screenwriter behind Danny Boyle movies like "The Beach," "28 Days Later," and "Sunshine." He has been open about the fact that he doesn't actually like directing, telling The Telegraph that he's a writer at heart: "I only wanted to direct in order to remove other directors from the equation. I essentially got where I am so I didn't have to sit there any more thinking, 'Oh f***, don't do it like that.'" 

"Civil War" was shot in Atlanta in early 2022. Speaking to Screen Daily last summer, Garland said "'Civil War' will definitely be my last film as a director for at least a while. Definitely." Describing it as "a contemporary war movie," the filmmaker added:

"It was a staggeringly difficult film to shoot. I wrapped five weeks ago, and I've been in the edit for the last five weeks. We're trying to get the film in a rough cut state where everything is broadly what one is intending. But, as well as that, there's a lot of visual effects in the movie so we're having to decide which shots were turning over as VFX shots. It's a very technical, non-stop process at the moment. There's a lot going on.

"Civil War" is set to release in spring 2024.