In the lead up to his newest film Weapons, we learned writer/director Zach Cregger would tackle Resident Evil for his next project. In the months since, he’s been vague about what to expect from the film, and his newest teases are slightly more concrete in terms of telling us his game plan for Capcom’s zombie franchise.
Talking to Inverse, Cregger called himself “the biggest worshipper of the games, so I’m telling a story that’s a love letter to the games and follows the rules of the games.” Not too dissimilar to what he’s said before, except he revealed the movie is “outside of the characters of the games. It’s obedient to the lore of the games, it’s just a different story.” More specifically, he said he wouldn’t tell the story of Leon S. Kennedy, who many expected to be the lead since Cregger’s brought on Austin Abrams (also in Weapons) to play a character, and the actor himself seemed to give Leon vibes.
Beyond that, Cregger’s comments indicate whoever Austin’s playing, it’ll be a wholly new character. The Resident Evil movies are no stranger to this; Milla Jovovich’s Alice was made specifically for the films, which stopped being faithful to the games after a certain point, much to the ire of longtime fans (if they were ever faithful to begin with). After those movies wrapped in 2017, the 2021 Welcome to Raccoon City touted itself as more faithful to the first two games, but that didn’t really resonate with audiences, like…at all. Funny to think about how things have come back around for the series, isn’t it?
And if that at all bothers you, Cregger diplomatically points you toward the games in the series—like Resident Evil Requiem, hitting PC and consoles in February 2026.
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