Weapons director Zach Cregger confirmed his Resident Evil reboot will not feature franchise characters.
Resident Evil has been through multiple onscreen iterations, for better or worse. Weapons director Zach Cregger confirmed his Resident Evil reboot will not feature franchise characters. Rather, Cregger confirmed in a recent Inverse interview that his film will introduce new characters and stories within the same game universe. He noted that game fans can “play the game” to see characters such as Leon, Jill, Chris, or Claire’s stories.
Earlier this year, Cregger confirmed he was slated to write and direct a new Resident Evil movie. With Barbarian and Weapons achieving Rotten Tomatoes scores of 92% and 95% respectively, fans are excited about the prospect of Cregger directing a new movie for the franchise and the hope that it could result in similar critical praise. The critically acclaimed horror writer-director of Barbarian explained how his movie will not retell any known stories from the games. Cregger went on to say how big a fan he is of the Resident Evil games.
“Let me say this – this is not breaking the rules of the games,” Cregger said, pointing out the new movie will still respect Resident Evil lore. “I am the biggest worshipper of the games, so I’m telling a story that is a love letter to the games and follows the rules of the games. It is obedient to the lore of the games; it’s just a different story. I’m not going to tell Leon’s story because Leon’s story is told in the games. [Fans] already have that.”
Constantin Film has held the screen rights for Resident Evil since the 1990s, when the Milla Jovovich-led and Paul W.S. Anderson-directed franchise began. The same film production house will reportedly produce the reboot along with PlayStation Productions, a studio formed in 2019 by Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt its original game properties for film and television in partnership with Sony Pictures.
Sony has set a release date of September 18, 2026, for the movie. By this time, the film will mark the 30th anniversary of Capcom’s Resident Evil games. This is the second attempt to reboot the Resident Evil movie series, after the 2021 film Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City received a disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score of 30%. Director Johannes Roberts also promised a true adaptation with the 2021 reboot, but also took many liberties with backstories for its franchise characters.
The only formula that sort of worked for a video game movie adaptation with this formula was the 2021 film Mortal Kombat. While it still contained game characters, Cole Young was primed as the main character. Maybe this is what Cregger will do, or the writer-director will be going a completely different direction. The Resident Evil universe has expanded successfully beyond its notable characters, as seen in the games when Ethan Winters became a new protagonist for the series.
