Barbarian director Zach Cregger is reportedly up for a new live-action Resident Evil project – a full reboot of the series that would follow Welcome to Raccoon City’s failed attempt at a reboot in 2021 and the 2022 Netflix Resident Evil show’s failed attempt at a reboot that lasted just one season. Both of those adaptations, and the Milla Jovovich-starring films that preceded them, are some of the most mocked and maligned video game adaptations of all time. So surely this next attempt will finally do justice to the games and make all the fans happy for once, right?
I don’t actually hate any of the live-action Resident Evil projects that came before. I found the Netflix series to be a surprisingly bold reinterpretation that kept just enough Resident Evil iconography to make its loose connection to games feel meaningful, and I appreciated Welcome to Raccoon City’s attempt to recreate the events of the first two games – as flawed as that attempt may have been. I’m unashamedly a big fan of the Jovovich films and I appreciate them now as a relic of their time. So I’m glad we’re getting even more Resident Evil on the big screen even though I know it’s going to be yet another bastardization of the video games that will outrage fans yet again.
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Which Resident Evil Infection Was The Most Dangerous?
The T-Virus and its derivatives was the fastest-spreading and was largely uncontrollable, so it would probably have gotten completely out of hand if it hadn’t been obliterated along with Raccoon City. The Plagas and Mutamycete are both controlled by a central intelligence but are slower to spread; of the two, the Mutamycete is probably the more dangerous overall due to its adaptability. What’s your take on RE’s lethal bio-organisms?
The surprising thing about the Jovovich films is that despite their negative reputation, they were massively successful. After Pokemon and Mario, Resident Evil is the highest-grossing video game film series of all time. That’s especially impressive when you consider it took 24 Pokemon movies to outperform Resident Evil, and it only fell behind Mario when The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed over a billion dollars last year.
It’s not that the live-action Resident Evil movies weren’t successful, it’s that they weren’t faithful. They come from the era when video game adaptations were universally panned by fans. Pale imitations of beloved games corrupted by Hollywood’s rigid adherence to predictable story structures and a desire to attract the widest audience possible ensured that any film based on a game would be a disappointment to fans. But thanks to Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Last of Us, we know there’s another way: it’s possible to make a good movie and a good adaptation at the same time. The bar has been raised, and with a rising director like Cregger at the helm, it seems like Sony wants the next Resident Evil to be at that level.
Cregger was previously tied to a Clue remake, which seems like a good fit for his comedy background as a member of the sketch group The Whitest Kids U’Know. He is reportedly dropping that project to direct Resident Evil instead.
Cregger certainly has the directing chops to make a competent Resident Evil movie, but I’m not sure there even is a way to do Resident Evil that will be satisfying to fans at this point. The series has a unique blend of horror, camp, and blockbuster action that’s proven difficult to replicate outside of games. A good adaptation will have to maintain a perfect balance of all three elements, while also staying true to the established lore, or fans will dismiss it as another inauthentic failure.
For what it’s worth, I’m just happy to see another Resident Evil movie in the works. After a failed reboot and hated TV show, most franchises would be headed for the icebox for at least a few years. Maybe the success of the recent games has convinced Sony to keep pushing for more movies. Maybe the big wigs realize we’re on the cusp of a burgeoning video game movie golden era and they just want to strike while the iron’s hot. Or maybe it comes back to Sony president Hiroki Totoki’s belief that the company doesn’t have enough IP of its own to use. Whatever the reason, and however you feel about all the Resident Evil movies that came before, there’s yet another one coming soon. If we’re lucky, this could be the one that gets it right.
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Was The Resident Evil 3 Remake Worse Than The Original Game?
Now that the dust has settled, what was your take on the Resident Evil 3 remake? It is inarguably the worst received of the remakes, but was it worse than the original? I do wish it hadn’t cut any areas, but I still think the end result was pretty damn good. How do you feel about it?