New details about the upcoming Resident Evil film are starting to pour in. Just a few days ago, we learned that actor Paul Walter Hauser (Cobra Kai, Black Bird, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, The Naked Gun) would join the cast. Now, movie director Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons) has spoken with Entertainment Weekly about the adaptation, revealing that it will be an entirely original story and, despite fan speculation, Leon Kennedy from the games won’t be there.
It’s an entirely original story. When you watch it, you’ll be like, ‘This is very Zach.’ It’s just it takes place in the Resident Evil world. I don’t think fans of the games are gonna be bummed. I’m not gonna steal Leon and put him in an original story. I think that would be presumptuous. But I respect the games enough where I’m gonna like tell a Resident Evil story in the Resident Evil canon that still leaves everything they love intact from the games, you know what I mean?
I think that when you see it, you’ll understand how I can be obsessed with original ideas and still make a movie that is an IP-based thing. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense now, but I hope that it will later.
We only know the very basics of this original story based on the synopsis. Apparently, a ‘hapless courier’ is sent to deliver a package to a remote hospital and soon finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak and must battle hordes of mutated creatures to survive. The courier is probably going to be played by Austin Abrams, who was the first actor to be confirmed for the Resident Evil movie. Abrams has been featured in This Is Us, Euphoria, Wolfs, and Weapons.
This will be the third film saga based on CAPCOM’s survival horror IP. The first and most famous is the series of six movies directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, starring Milla Jovovich. In 2021, there was an attempted reboot with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which was more faithful than Anderson’s movies to the games but still largely failed to captivate critics and fans. The following year, a way less faithful TV series adaptation was released on Netflix; it was canceled after the first season.
