Director Alex Garland’s second film, Annihilation—following Ex Machina—was released in North American theaters in February 2018 and it flopped.
In addition, Paramount sold the film’s international rights to Netflix, so the film won’t be available to the public on widescreen outside of the U.S., Canada and China.
I watched the film on Netflix and—while it is still a great experience—could tell the film was obviously made for big screen and the home viewer surely will miss out not watching it in a movie theater. According to a film critic, Devindra Hardawar:
If you're just watching it on a TV or -- movie gods forbid -- on your laptop or tablet, you'll definitely miss out on the film's epic scope and rich sound design. Several sequences seemed purposefully built to be experienced with a crowd on an enormous screen. A scene with a monster prowling through a room, as our intrepid explorers can only sit trembling, praying not to get attacked, had my audience holding their breath. (I could tell from the collective sigh of relief when it was all over.) The film's astounding finale, a dialogue-free visual feast that would be right at home at the Museum of Modern Art, felt almost like a collective religious experience.
Another fan of Garland’s work wrote:
Seeing Annihilation for the first time on the small screen left me with the sense that I'd missed something from the whole experience. It's the first time I've been denied the opportunity to watch an Alex Garland movie in a cinema, which is how I'd experienced all of his work thus far, from 28 Days Later onward.
Why didn't Paramount did not give a chance for an international audiences to watch the film on the big screen?
