A few days ago we learned of the first impressions of Jeff VanderMeer about the film adaptation of his novel, directed by Alex Garland. Well, today the author gave more details about the movie in “The Watch” podcast. The Film Stage compiles some of its statements:

“The first thing I realized is that even though Alex Garland says he’s not an auteur, he is an auteur,” the author says. “So my expectation was to not have anything to do with the movie and that’s the actual fact. He wrote the script and he was kind enough to keep me in the loop during every part of the process, but that wasn’t for me to put my two cents in, basically. It was just so I would know what was going on.”

Speaking to actually seeing the film, he adds, “It’s actually more surreal than the novel. There are a couple places where I was like, ‘I might need an anchor here.’ The ending is so mind-blowing and in some ways different from the book that it seems to be the kind of ending that, like 2001 or something like that, people will be talking about around the watercooler for years.” He wraps up by saying, “Visually, it’s amazing. I must say that and that’s all I probably should say.”

Here is the full podcast.

The movie will premiere sometime in 2018.