The location of the house in the movie is the Juvet Landscape Hotel in Norway.
Director Alex Garland has described the future presented in the film as "ten minutes from now," meaning, "If somebody like Google or Apple announced tomorrow that they had made Ava, we would all be surprised, but we wouldn't be that surprised."
Oscar Isaac said he based his characterization of Nathan on Bobby Fischer and Stanley Kubrick, who he sees as mysterious, elusive geniuses. The now iconic look of the latter also served as an inspiration for his beard.
This recipient of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects was made only on a budget of $15 million, and won the award over several big-budget movies like The Revenant (2015) ($135 million), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) ($150 million), and Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) ($200 million).
The title derives from the Latin phrase "Deus Ex-Machina," meaning "a God from the Machine," a phrase that originated in Greek tragedies. An actor playing a God would be lowered down via a platform (machine) and solve the characters' issues, resulting in a happy ending.