Alex Garland has largely kept his career centered around sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, both as a screenwriter and director. With films such as Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men he explored all of those genres to great critical acclaim. But it was last year’s Civil War that saw Garland go in a different direction to explore current cultural ideas in a dystopian fashion. And that trend continues with his latest, Warfare, a military thriller opening in 2025.
Warfare finds Garland teaming up with co-writer/co-director and ex-Navy Seal Ray Mendoza on an Iraq War story told in real-time and based on Mendoza’s combat experiences.
The film has a great ensemble of D’pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Taylor John Smith, Michael Gandolfini, Adain Bradley, Noah Centineo, Evan Holtzman, Henrique Zaga, Joseph Quinn, and Charles Melton. Woon-A-Tai, best known for his leading role in Reservation Dogs, plays Mendoza.
Here’s the synopsis: Written and Directed by Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland (Civil War, 28 Days Later), Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy SEALs in the home of an Iraqi family, overwatching the movement of US forces through insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare, told like never before: in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.
Garland has said this will likely be the last movie he ever directs to focus on screenwriting again, as he’s doing with Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later trilogy.
A24 will release Warfare in theaters in 2025.
