Civil War director shares production company's reaction to him making its most expensive movie ever

Civil War director Alex Garland has revealed how production company A24 reacted when he brought it its most expensive movie ever.

Fighter jets, tanks, and an explosion of the Lincoln Memorial itself - Civil War does not mess around when it comes to action.

Kirsten Dunst stars in Civil War. (A24)

Directed by 28 Days Later's Alex Garland, the movie takes place in an America of the future - but one which, unfortunately, isn't that hard to imagine.

Speaking to UNILAD, Garland explained that the movie was written about four years ago, at a time when 'the issues in the film', including how journalists are perceived, political polarisation, populist politics, and extremism, 'were very current'.

"They'd been discussed for a long time, and they were in the ether, and what it really is, is nothing has changed over the last four years," he said.

Garland made clear that it wasn't unusual for a movie to 'take ages' to get made - especially with Covid-19 getting in the way - and while production company A24 is well versed in creating movies at this point, Civil War was a new kind of beast.

With a reported budget of $50 million, the action movie has the biggest budget of any movie ever made by A24 - which has previously brought us the likes of The Iron Claw and Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Asking for $50 million to work on a project isn't exactly like asking someone to borrow a cup of sugar, but according to Garland, A24 were totally on board.

"[There was] no pushback at all," he said. "I wrote the script, sent it to them and they said, 'yeah, we want to make it'.

"It was it was clear from the script that this would require a certain level of budget."

Civil War blew up the Lincoln Memorial. (A24)

Garland claimed A24 'never baulked' at the figure needed for the movie - at least not to his face.

"Maybe behind the scenes they were going 'oh my God it's another helicopter' or something [but] that never reached me. I just got total support," he said.

The support has obviously paid off, as Civil War released today (12 April) and already has impressive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, earning a score of 84 percent on the Tomatometer and an 86 percent Audience Score.

Viewers have described the movie as 'gripping', and 'quick, brutal, and beautiful'.

On X, one satisfied viewer wrote: "#CivilWarMovie is 1hr & 49min of pure intensity. One of the scariest movies I have seen in a while just based off how quickly it can become reality.

"Insanely gritty, stunning cinematography, bone shaking sound design, and top tier acting. A truly haunting film 94/100."

Civil War is in theatres now.

Topics: Film and TV, Money

Emily Brown

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.