While theResident Evilmovie franchise is the most successful gaming adaptation in Hollywood, fans of the game have complained the movies turned the stealth-and-horror franchise into a generic action series. Things would have been different if the writers ofA Quiet Place, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, had taken up the offer of rebooting theResident Evilfilms. Woods offers that the pair were tempted by the offer because of their love for the games.
“[After the success ofA Quiet Place], there’s been a lot of stuff that’s crossed our desk. There’s been stuff where we’re like, ‘Oh wow, thanks for thinking of us. What an honor.’ But wasn’t the right thing. I think the one thing that crossed our desk that we explored for a second and would be open to continuing to explore it, although I think they probably wouldn’t want to go in as outrageous of a direction as we would want to take it, I think they want to go in a more conventional direction, but Resident Evil is probably the one piece of IP that we were interested in that’s crossed our desk, just because we grew up with that first game. The first game was so cinematic and it was like the scariest thing. It almost felt scarier than any horror movie. We’d invite all of our friends over and one person would play the game. We’d all just watch as audience members and shriek anytime something scary happened.”
Woods' description of the game is what drewResident Evilits early success, and established the game as something different from the generic shooters cluttering the gaming landscape at the time. ForBryan Woods, one idea for aResident Evilmovie that was particularly intriguing was something along the lines of1917.
“We thought the zombie genre has gotten so tired. We’ve just seenevery iteration of zombiesyou could possibly imagine. So, how do you do something new? With Resident Evil, we were like, ‘Oh, maybe you could approach it like Sam Mendes approached 1917 and just do this insane, outrageous one in the zombie genre with Resident Evil,’ which feels organic to Resident Evil becausethose gamesfeel like one big piece of movement and sustained piece of suspense. That was the one thing that we toyed with for like, five seconds. But, outside of that, the thrill for us is just creating new ideas and new worlds.”
While beck and Woods ultimately passed on making aResident Evilfilm, the project hasfound new life in the past month. It has been confirmed that writer-director Johannes Roberts will helm a newResident Evilorigin movie featuring Kaya Scodelario as Claire Redfield, Hannah John-Kamen as Jill Valentine, Robbie Amell as Chris Redfield, Tom Hopper as Albert Wesker, Avan Jogia as Leon S. Kennedy, and Neal McDonough as William Birkin. Hopefully, this fresh iteration of the series will be closer in spirit to the iconic gaming franchise. This news originated atComicBook.com.
