Given the rabid fandom, there was never going to be quiet angle into a new “Resident Evil” movie. Speaking to The New York Times, Zach Cregger said he expected some fans would “crucify” him if the reboot drifted too far from franchise lore. But the part that really defines his approach sits right beside the warning. “I love the idea of being pitted against a world that is hellbent on annihilating you,” he said. “It just feels fun, and I haven’t seen a movie that offers that sort of experience.”
READ MORE: 17 Must-See April Films: ‘The Drama,’ ‘The Christophers,’ ‘Mother Mary, ’ ‘Normal’ & More
That sounds less like somebody trying to win a continuity argument and more like a horror filmmaker zeroing in on the survival-panic loop that made the games stick in the first place. “Resident Evil” has been adapted often enough, but live-action versions have usually grabbed the iconography and lost the dread. Cregger’s language suggests he is aiming for pressure, confinement, and forward momentum first, even if that means some lore loyalists get uneasy.
He had already been laying the groundwork for that in earlier interviews. Speaking to SFX last year, Cregger said, “I’m definitely not trying to be completely obedient to the lore of the games. I’m trying to tell a story that just feels authentic to the experience you get when you play the games.” In the same stretch, he acknowledged the online backlash was inevitable, saying, “No matter what I do, people are going to come for me online.”
He got more specific with Entertainment Weekly in September, when he described the film as “an entirely original story” and added, “When you watch it, you’ll be like, ‘This is very Zach.’ It’s just [that] it takes place in the Resident Evil world.” He also shut down the idea of simply lifting Leon S. Kennedy into a new plot for recognition value: “I’m not gonna steal Leon and put him in an original story. I think that would be presumptuous.”
So the shape of the thing is pretty clear now. Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten are not remaking one of the games beat for beat; they are building an original story inside that world. Current reports say the film follows a medical courier who enters Raccoon City and gets caught in a viral outbreak. Austin Abrams, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser star, and Sony has dated the movie for September 18, 2026.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
