‘Resident Evil’: Austin Abrams In Talks To Lead Zach Cregger’s Horror Remake At Sony

After wowing critics and audiences with his original horror flick “Barbarian,” filmmaker Zach Cregger (“Weapons”) is entering the world of franchises by helping to reboot, for a second time, “Resident Evil” based on the acclaimed Capcom video game series.

Rising star Austin Abrams (“Euphoria”), who recently co-starred alongside Brad Pitt and George Clooney in Jon Watts‘ “Wolfs” has reportedly entered talks to take a lead role in the survival horror remake at Constantin Film and Sony Pictures. The news hailing from Deadline doesn’t mention a specific role but the two big male characters from the franchise are Chris Redfield (brother of Claire Redfield) and Leon S. Kennedy.

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Abrams and Cregger recently worked on his next film “Weapons,” which is due to be released next January, making this potential casting a reunion.

The sci-fi horror story focuses on the T-virus, a man-made bio-weapon created by the evil Umbrella Corporation that escapes their labs and is behind a city-wide zombie outbreak that leads to all sorts of other deadly creatures arising after mutating their human hosts.

Cregger is co-writing the script with genre screenwriter Shay Hatten (“Ballerina,” “John Wick 4”), who is likely best known for his work on the “John Wick” movies.

This won’t be the first major attempt to reboot “Resident Evil” as there were previous reboots with Netflix‘s feature effort “Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City” and a short-lived series that debuted back in 2022.

While the film franchise that launched back in 2002 is mostly known for being linked to director Paul W.S. Anderson and actress Milla Jovovich, a live-action trailer for the second video game (referred to as “Biohazard 2” in Japan) was shot by legendary horror filmmaker George A. Romeo (“Night of The Living Dead”) and featured the late actor Brad Renfro (“The Client,” “Bully”). Romero also tried to get his own version of the movie together which is documented in “George A. Romero’s Resident Evil.”

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Sony has set the release date for “Resident Evil” on September 18, 2026, which means that production is gearing up soon and more casting announcements will be made.