After years of “Resident Evil” movies that treated Capcom’s horror franchise as everything from zombie shoot-’em-up to post-apocalyptic action circus, the new reboot is trying a cleaner route: one protagonist, one bad night, and a world that seems determined to tear him apart.
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Sony Pictures has released the first trailer for Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil,” the new big-screen reboot of the long-running video game franchise. Cregger, who broke out in horror with “Barbarian” and followed it with “Weapons,” directs from a script he co-wrote with Shay Hatten, the screenwriter behind “John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum” and “John Wick: Chapter 4.”
The film stars Austin Abrams as Bryan, a medical courier trapped in one horrifying night after one of the smaller supporting roles in Cregger’s ensemble-horror “Weapons”—a jump that suggests the filmmaker saw something worth building on. Paul Wa: Paulauser, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Johnno Wilson co-star.
Cregger has been clear that his version is not designed as a rigid adaptation of the games’ lore. Instead, he has framed the film as an original story set within the “Resident Evil” universe, meant to capture the feeling of playing the games rather than simply retelling familiar stories. For a franchise that has already burned through multiple continuities, that may be the sharper play: not another checklist of recognizable names, but a pressure-cooker horror ride built around helplessness, momentum, and survival.
That approach is all over the trailer, which leans into Bryan’s descent through a snowy, monster-filled nightmare. Cregger previously described the film as a “big, scary ride,” and the first look suggests a version of “Resident Evil” that is less concerned with franchise sprawl than with trapping its lead character inside a hostile landscape and refusing to let up.
It also arrives at a moment when video game adaptations have become one of Hollywood’s most aggressive IP plays, from prestige TV swings to huge studio franchise bets. “Resident Evil” was early to that game, but the movies have rarely captured the specific dread of the source material. Cregger’s film appears to be betting that the way back in is not scale for scale’s sake, but panic—one body moving through the dark, with something worse around every corner.
“Resident Evil” opens in theaters on September 18, 2026. Watch the trailer below.
