Remember Resident Evil: The Final Chapter? Of course you do; Paul W.S. Anderson’s sixth and final installment in the lucrative series released only five months ago or so in the United States. But after grossing a franchise-high of $312 million at the global box office, the Powers That Be have officially ruled that there’s still life in the T-virus yet. So much so that Constantin Films and Screen Gems are purportedly in the early stages of constructing a six-movie reboot for Resident Evil.
News emerged during the Cannes Film Festival, where Constantin’s head honcho Martin Moszkowicz revealed that Resident Evil won’t be spending too much time on the shelf after all. As we mentioned above, a reboot of the series is currently in development from Aquaman director James Wan and writer Greg Russo, with a potential further six films to be released, albeit sans Jovovich – and she isn’t too happy about it.
Aside from the fact the actress won’t be returning, we really don’t know too much about the reboot just yet, but Collider was able to dig up a few new nuggets of information while chatting with producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi. While it’s still early days on the project and he obviously can’t say a whole lot, he did confirm that none of the cast members – nor longtime director Paul W.S. Anderson – will be returning. Instead, they’ll be starting with a fresh slate.
“We will be getting a new director and also the cast members are going to change, too, but I’m looking forward to doing it.”
What comes next is perhaps more interesting, though, as Collider asked Kobayashi what tone the reboot would be aiming for. As fans will know, the Resident Evil movies have always been more about the action while the games tend to favor the horror. Actually, it depends on which entry we’re talking about, but for the most part, you’ll get more horror from the series while playing it rather than if you simply watch it. It seems like things will stay that way, too, as Kobayashi said the following:
I personally like Paul W.S. Anderson’s [direction] on the live-action [films]. Stuff like that, I would like to see more action.
Depending on how you feel about Anderson’s work with the property, that’s either good news or bad. While the Resident Evil films were all slammed by critics, they do have a rather large fanbase, with the series bringing in some good money for the studio over its six entries. Not only that, but even though they were far from high art, if you shut off your brain for a few hours and just went with it, it was easy to get lost in the over the top ass kicking and action that the movies provided.
That being said, a lot of people would have liked to have seen more horror mixed in with all the fighting, gunplay and explosions and were hopeful that the reboot may bring that. Especially with James Wan on board. Of course, it’s still early days and Kobayashi’s comments are far from confirmation of anything, but it does seem like they’re intending on heading down a similar route as to what we saw with the previous films – which means don’t go in expecting any scares.
Time will ultimately tell how this planned reboot, and its already confirmed sequels turn out, but for now, we’ll remain cautiously optimistic about the new Resident Evil movies.
