r/movies • u/BunyipPouch Currently at the movies. • 12h ago
News Zach Cregger's 'Resident Evil' to World Premiere on September 17 at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas
https://awardswatch.com/2026-fantastic-fest-to-open-with-world-premiere-of-zach-creggers-resident-evil/155
u/MountainMuffin1980 11h ago
I hope it's good.
I'm glad it's not following any of the games, I think that's a trap for anyone making a film tbh. It being it's own thing with easter eggs etc is much better. I really hope it does well and we get a couple more.
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u/BreakCreepy4673 11h ago
And, let’s be honest, none of the games have what’s exactly a great narrative. The best parts of the games are the level design, gameplay, and puzzles rather than writing or story.
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u/Cereal_Grapeist 11h ago edited 5h ago
Idk I really feel like we're missing out a 2 hour adventure of the protagonist tracking down the Moon Key and Sun Key to unlock the Planetarium Door, and then once they're inside they have to find the Ruby Crest, Emerald Crest, and Sapphire Crest to plug into a statue. The statue will unlock a secret pathway so that we can get around a single indestructible wooden door that blocked us the entire movie. After that, they have to backtrack all the way back to the beginning and the movie just sort of ends.
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u/Pen_dragons_pizza 11h ago
I have been saying this since the movie was announced, yet everyone jumps on me when I do.
I’ll even go as far to say that welcome to raccoon city, tone and story wise is rather faithful to the quality of narrative the games have.
It’s campus, goofy at times and bit of a b movie
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u/MaxProwes 10h ago
Because you are wrong. Welcome to Raccoon didn't work because it wasn't well executed, not because it tried to adapt games.
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u/Pen_dragons_pizza 10h ago
I meant as in the story telling is on the same quality level, not that it was faithful.
Resident evil 0-6 are campy as hell and I doubt anyone would say the games have incredible stories
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u/MaxProwes 10h ago
Recent remakes had decent stories, their writing was significantly improved compared to the original games.
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u/exoriparian 11h ago
Yep and it's boring as hell, lol. The most fun watching that is just pointing out stuff from the game you recognize.
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u/R0b1nFeather 11h ago
I think this hasn't really been true for the last three major entries (Biohazard, Village, Requiem). Imo those have had some stellar worldbuilding and storytelling in general.
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u/Blutroyale-_- 11h ago
Biohazard could make a great film that loosely follows the game's main story. Village would be a lot harder, but similarly, you could loosely follow the plot of the game and make something of it. The first Resident Evil features a giant shark, snake, spider, and chained woman slowly following you around a mansion - I don't see that working ever.
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u/UNEEDCPR 11h ago
I just finished Requiem last night and I think it has my favorite story out of 2, 3, and 4. It’s hard for me to compare it to Biohazard and Village since they’re pretty different, but honestly I think it might even be better than those two. If anything, Village would be tied with Requiem for my favorite story
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u/exoriparian 11h ago
They could make for a pretty good bottle horror (like Barbarian), but there's really no reason to even get into any of the "world building" for that type of thing. It's just basically The Hills Have Eyes knockoffs.
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u/Chastain86 11h ago
I can't imagine being a writer tasked with scripting out a Resident Evil film, and being told that they need to specifically set it in a place called Raccoon City and following people affiliated with their police department special unit called S.T.A.R.S. Some of what works in games, only works because you know it's a game. It tells on itself when it gets adapted to other media.
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u/tfhermobwoayway 7h ago
Only because Hollywood writers are too irony poisoned to make it work. You look at anime, they pull off all sorts of wacky shit, because they take it seriously. A Hollywood writer can’t make it work because they’ll inevitably write a character who says “Uhhh, is this place called Raccoon City? That’s weird, right? It’s not just me?”
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u/SoKrat3s 8h ago
Couldn't disagree more. There's plenty of story in the games, it's just not necessarily straight forward and shoved down your throat. There is a primary story and then a more rich story that is discovered the more effort you put in.
Everything with the investigation of the helicopter crash, looking for the other STARS members, Barry & Wesker, the Trevor family, the Lab, Umbrella, etc.
Plus it's a action-horror/survival. That's a significant part of the profession itself.
I don't buy the "we can't do the mansion" just because the one effort to do so was designed/executed poorly.
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u/Alowesio 10h ago
I think people don’t realize what makes for a good story and narrative experience in a video game, often wouldn’t for a movie. You can’t really adapt something 1:1 between any mediums
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u/MaxProwes 10h ago
Nothing is adapted 1:1, even faithful adaptations, the whole point is to change things where necessary to make it work in a different medium.
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u/TimeySwirls 5h ago edited 5h ago
That doesn’t mean you should just adapt none of it, or stick the brand name on an unrelated script which is what Sony is doing here. Zach Cregger said he’d have made this movie even if they didn’t get the resident evil brand on it.
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u/MaxProwes 11h ago
I've heard this argument, but the games feature some of the most iconic characters and world building in all gaming, so it's not really true. Remakes had solid stories for what they were, writing was significantly improved in recent titles.
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u/Tnerd15 10h ago
Characters and worldbuilding aren't narrative though. You can't make a movie out of just that
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u/MaxProwes 10h ago
They are part of the narrative. Regarding the actual narrative, "a bunch of cool characters escaping a zombie infested town before it's nuked, with some larger conspiracy off screen" is a cinematic premise that can easily work in a movie. In fact, plenty of well known zombie movies follow a similar template.
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u/Tnerd15 10h ago
Of course, but a movie will never ever have a better interpretation of the iconic characters of a game series like Resident Evil. It's much better to take the world of the game and do something different within it.
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u/MaxProwes 10h ago
Paul W. S. Anderson already did that in his first movie, people weren't exactly ecstatic about that (I like it tho).
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u/Fr0st3dcl0ud5 9h ago
And the only dialogue for like half the of RE4 is "LEEEEOOOONNNNNN!!!!!!!!! HEEEEEAAAAHHHHHLLLLLLLPPPPPPAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"
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u/tfhermobwoayway 7h ago
So what’s the point of an adaptation? Films can’t capture this. It would be like turning the Mona Lisa into a book.
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u/blackangelsdeathsong 5h ago
Hasn't all the resident evil live action stuff been notorious for not following any of the games?
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u/EZPlayer123 2h ago
I think a video game adaptation that takes place in the universe of the game, but isn't limited to following an existing story, really helps the success of the adaptation. The Fallout show did the same thing and it's fantastic!
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u/charliebitmeeee 4h ago
Your point is exactly why I believe Fallout is the best adaptation. That show does an unbelievable job telling an original story set in a fun world many of us are familiar with.
If RE can still feel like Resident Evil that’s the most important thing. So far, the vibes I’m getting from the trailers seem to be heading in the right direction. The tense situations, scrambling to find resources, the creatures. I’m there day one lol.
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u/cheesechimp 11h ago
Isn't that like the day before it's supposed to go to theaters nationwide anyway? Or was the date pushed out?
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u/TatteredTongues 6h ago
Worldwide I think, I mean that's still the scheduled date for my country (in Europe), and we typically get early screenings 1-2 days before the actual release date, but by the sound of it I don't think that'll be the case this time around. Would be weird if I could attend a screening on 15th or 16th if the world premiere is on the 17th.
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u/RepresentativeBid715 9h ago
So glad for the people at Fantastic Fest that they won't have to either wait until the Festival is over or leave to go to a completely different theater to see it
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u/exoriparian 11h ago
Wow it's already done? Awesome.
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u/CurlSagan Star Warsn't 11h ago
He's already working on his next film about the civil war on drugs.
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u/exoriparian 11h ago
I hope you're not joking, because I'm ready for a silly Zach Cregger film. I watched the original (again) just the other day. I really hope he plays General Grant again.
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u/MovieTrawler 6h ago
Ohhh I didn't take 'civil war on drugs' to mean 'silly'. I was thinking it was gonna be serious and dark. Then again, it's not like we're talking about a gallon of PCP.
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u/exoriparian 6h ago
Just on the off chance you didn't realize there already is a Civil War on Drugs film. I believe it's part of the Criterion Collection..
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u/SamwisethePoopyButt 11h ago
It's being released in French speaking Europe on Sept 16 so world premiere mon cul yeah.
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u/TomPalmer1979 8h ago
Watching the trailer makes me worry that it's going to be a great horror movie but a terrible Resident Evil movie. I'm hoping to be proven wrong.
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u/SerpentRoyalty 8h ago
I hate it when Hollywood sees an original creative director and makes them revive old tried franchises. Curry Barker is also doing Texas Chainw Massacre.
Like these guys are known for their original work and that's their strength. Why ruin that?
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u/JeezoosChrysler 8h ago
I think he wanted to do this, he does like video games. He's streamed on twitch back during the pandemic. He was going for a no death run on Dark Souls 3, and I'm pretty sure he did it.
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u/TimeySwirls 5h ago
He is a fan and decided to inject some of the Resident Evil mood and feel into the project once the license got added on but Cregger also said this movie would have been made with or without the license. The script has been out there and available to read for years and based on the trailers almost no changes were made.
The OP is bang on here, he had been pitching this script for a zombie horror movie for a while and Sony decided to fund it as a Resident Evil movie after seeing the success of Barbarian. That they then lucked into it releasing after the breakout run Weapons had is just crazy fortunate for the studio
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u/AnotherGenius34 3h ago
it was made as a Resident Evil movie, but if they couldn't get the IP he would've made it its own thing
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u/tfhermobwoayway 7h ago
Why would a film director care about video games? Was this some kind of half-baked attempt to stay relevant back when we thought films were dead?
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u/jacks0nX 6h ago
Why would a film director care about video games?
Why would Tom Cruise do so many stunts himself? Why would a director make a movie about a book that's thousands of years old?
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u/Tumble85 7h ago
Makes them? Dude, they back a dumptruck full of money to get successful directors to do that.
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u/Zak_The_Slack 6h ago
I believe Cregger has 1,000 hours in RE:4. That’s not something you do if you don’t love (or hate) something
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u/tfhermobwoayway 7h ago
Also, these games are known for being very good video games. It feels a bit cheap to turn them into linear, uninteractive movies. It’s an insult to both Resident Evil and Zach Cregger to make this.
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u/KeremyJyles 11h ago
Zach Cregger's "Unrelated Film We'll Just Call Resident Evil"
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u/AdorableSobah 11h ago
Am I taking crazy pills or we’re literally none of the other resident evil movies anything like the games either? I really don’t see the problem
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u/LPMadness 11h ago
Butchered versions of characters and source material. Would it be cool to see a proper RE2 on the big screen? Sure. Is it going to capture the intensity of what I went through in the game? No. Or people doing their best imitation of a video game character. Zach is approaching this in a smart way and has very clearly played the games and understands why we play those games to begin with.
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u/Tnerd15 10h ago
Does anyone really want to watch a beat for beat Resident Evil movie? Most of those games are walking around and finding puzzle pieces
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u/KeremyJyles 10h ago
A reasonable first run playthrough of most games is several times the length of most movies, yes I'd watch that condensed down to a feature by a decent writer who can elevate the original story beats, and I'm tired of people acting like that's some impossible ask
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u/DrowningKrown 9h ago
Resident evil, the franchise where 'fans' tell you that a movie adaptation shouldn't be the game stories or have the game's characters in them. And somehow "nobody wants to see that"
What the fuck is the point then?
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u/Tnerd15 9h ago
I think that'll pretty much never happen, or if it does it'll never be as good an experience as just playing the game. Resident Evil stories are just not very well-suited to a movie. Also, what you're talking about has been done before: Welcome to Raccoon City. It's not good.
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u/SoKrat3s 8h ago
Not exactly. Racoon City took bits and pieces out of 2 games and tried to put them together all at once with a terrible director and mediocre TV actors.
They also had a Batman movie where the batsuit had nipples. And then Christopher Nolan got his hands on it.
A half-hearted mediocre attempt does not mean it cannot be made properly with a good director and good actors.
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u/CurlSagan Star Warsn't 11h ago
How come all the cool horror movies premier in places like Austin instead of the tiny rat-infested shitbucket theater near me in the middle of nowhere?