Author and screenwriter Alex Garland will be making the jump to feature director according to THR. He'll be making a sci-fi thriller entitled Ex Machina, which likely has zero connection with the Brian K. Vaughn comic or Appleseed. Garland is best known for writing films for Danny Boyle such as The Beach (his original novel was adapted), Sunshine and 28 Days Later. He's also written the original film that centers on a billionaire programmer who handpicks a young employee to spend a week at his remote estate and participate in a test involving his latest invention -- an artificially intelligent female robot. The film is getting a small budget of $15m and will shoot this Summer or Fall.
There had been rumblings during the production of Dredd that Garland who wrote and produced the film had to come in and did some re-shoots. Rumors also pointed to him taking over in the editing room as well. It's possible that Pete Travis was actually including Alex into the process of the film to give him tools to go off to direct Ex Machina.
