‘2001,’ 50 Years Later: Kubrick’s Classic Showed How ‘Annihilation’ Could Have Been Profitable

Alex Garland’s smart sci-fi film “Annihilation” inspired a great deal of consternation, but not a lot of box office.

More than anything, however, the film’s release may speak more to the impatient state of studio moviemaking.For some, it showed Hollywood still is unwilling to back genre films with female protagonists, especially the smart, diverse scientist kind.

Paramount took heat for cold feet, having unloaded most of the film’s rights to Netflix — reportedly after unfavorable test screenings — and then assembling a half-hearted marketing campaign behind the film’s theatrical release.

The Guardian critic Guy Lodge put it bluntly: “Was ‘Annihilation’ too brainy for the box office?”It’s been 50 years since Stanley Kubrick practically invented the cerebral sci-fi film with “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but does “Annihilation” really prove that modern audiences only go to theaters for spectacle, not for smart? Like “Annihilation,” reviewers in April 1968 said Kubrick’s film was heady,

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