Principal photography has begun on the artificial intelligence thriller starring Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander.

Universal Pictures International (UPI) and Film4 have announced the start of principal photography on DNA production Ex Machina. 

Written and directed by Alex Garland, the film is produced by DNA’s Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich with Scott Rudin and Eli Bush and Film4’s Tessa Ross as executive producers.

The psychological thriller stars Domhnall Gleeson (About Time), Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) and Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair). 

The film is fully financed by Universal Pictures International and Film4 with Universal distributing worldwide.  Filming will take place at Pinewood Studios in London and on location in Norway.

The story centres on Caleb, a young coder at the world’s largest internet company, who wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. 

But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world’s first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl. 

Garland’s screenwriting credits include 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go and Dredd.  He also wrote the novel The Beach and The Tesseract, both which have adapted as films.

Joining Garland are director of photography Rob Hardy (Blitz), production designer Mark Digby (Slumdog Millionaire), costume designer Sammy Sheldon Differ (X-Men: First Class), make up designer Sian Grigg (Never Let Me Go) and editor Mark Day (About Time).

Topics