After critically acclaimed hits like Weapons and Barbarian, it's hardly surprising that there's so much excitement surrounding what filmmaker Zach Cregger has planned for his big-screen adaptation of the Resident Evil franchise.
It won't be too difficult to top what's come before, given that every previous live-action instalment has a "Rotten" score on Rotten Tomatoes. Fortunately, Cregger sounds like a legitimate fan who wants to do right by a video game franchise he loves.
Two new Resident Evil posters have been released (via FearHQ.com), and they're suitably chilling. Offering some hints about what's to come, these one-sheets promise a story that's loyal to the franchise's roots. We also have a new featurette for the reboot, exploring how the movie adapts its survival horror elements.
Previously, Cregger said that he isn't attempting to adapt any specific Resident Evil video game. However, in his mind, he feels that it takes place during the events of the second instalment, released in 1998 and remade in 2019.
"My rule for this movie was to try and make a movie that felt like my experience of playing the games, and that could live in the world of Resident Evil," he teased. "I feel like this movie takes place alongside the events of Resident Evil 2. I like to think that everything that’s going on in the police station could be happening in this world. This is just another dude on another mission on the other side of town."
Fortunately, Cregger will not be taking any inspiration from the previous Resident Evil movies. "I’ve never seen [them]. I have never seen a single one," he's confirmed. "So the only lessons I could take from them are just in terms of what I’ve gleaned from the trailers that I saw when they were coming out."
"And frankly, the reason I didn’t see them is that I was such a fan of the games, and they just didn’t look like the games to me. And I mean, it was so obvious that they were not the games that I was like, 'It’s not for me. Maybe they’re great. I have no idea,'" he added.
From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) comes a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise. In an all-new story, Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
The cast also includes Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser. Cregger directs from a screenplay he wrote with Shay Hatten, and producers include Robert Kulzer, Zach Cregger, Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, Carter Swan, and Asad Qizilbash. The executive producers are Oliver Berben, Victor Hadida, Richard Wright, and Robert Bernacci.
Resident Evil is set to be released in theaters on September 18. You can see both posters, the new featurette, and the previously released teaser trailer, below.