A new Resident Evil movie is in the works, and there’s reportedly a bidding war underway among four major studios to land it. That’s because the upcoming Resident Evil reboot already has Barbarian helmer Zach Cregger attached to write and direct the film.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cregger’s Resident Evil is described as “a revamp that will take the title to its horror roots and be more faithful to the initial games.” That would be nice change of pace from the previous Resident Evil films. The most recent adaptation, 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City, attempted to adapt the first two games in a single film, but it did very poorly in theaters. The six Resident Evil movies that came before that were largely focused on Milla Jovovich’s Alice, a character who was created for the films. To date, there hasn’t been a live-action Resident Evil film that truly captured the spirit of the games.
Sony’s Screen Gems distributed all of the previous Resident Evil movies, but the rights to this one are up for grabs because Cregger has some box office clout. Barbarian was critically acclaimed and a cult hit, while his second horror movie, Weapons, is said to have very high screen-test scores, though it’s yet to debut publicly.
Only two of the four studios–Warner Bros. and Netflix–were mentioned by name in the report. Netflix has previously released a live-action Resident Evil series starring Lance Reddick in addition to streaming various animated RE films. However, Warner Bros. may have the edge, as it picked up the rights to Weapons during a previous bidding war for Cregger’s services.
Paul W.S. Anderson, the man who directed the first six Resident Evil films, was recently attached to direct an adaptation of Sega’s House of the Dead. Additionally, a documentary about George Romero’s unproduced Resident Evil movie debuted earlier in January. For fans of the games, it appears that Resident Evil 6 may be coming to the current console generation.
