James Wan’s Resident Evil Reboot Will Go Back To Franchise’s Horror Roots

After six post-apocalyptic thrillers in only 10 years, writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson brought the Resident Evil series to a close with The Final Chapter, a conclusive, though somewhat underwhelming finale to one of the more enjoyable action series of the past decade.

That was back in 2016, and ever since, Constantin Films has been planning a big-screen revival of Resident Evil, one which will come to theaters through James Wan (The Conjuring, Aquaman) and Mortal Kombat screenwriter Greg Russo. Not much has been said about the studio’s plans just yet, but one thing we can tell you is that Anderson won’t be involved, as he’s already working on his follow-up gig: Monster Hunter.

Nevertheless, there are still many reasons to be excited about what’s coming our way and now, we’ve got one more to add to the list. Speaking with Discussing Film, Russo explained that the reboot will be going back to the horror roots of the franchise, rather than heading down a more action oriented route like Anderson’s films did.

“Obviously I’m a huge fan of the franchise so to work on that was a lot of fun,” says Russo. “For me it was very clear cut that I wanted to go back and make it scary again like a horror film in terms of the classic James Wan style so that was the pitch, going back and looking what made the games scary in the first place so yea Resident Evil 7 was a bit of a touchstone for my draft.”

“Not to shame the original film franchise that was made, I think that did very well. But I always considered the franchise to be horror at the forefront and action as a secondary feature.”

Obviously, this is good news for fans of Resident Evil. Anderson’s efforts were enjoyable, sure, but they did do away with a lot of the horror that the franchise is known for. It was easy to get lost in the over the top ass kicking and action that the movies provided, but a few more scares would’ve been nice – especially in the later installments.

With James Wan on board to produce, it certainly sounds like we’ll be getting a more horror oriented slant on Resident Evil with this reboot and at the moment, we remain hopeful that Constantin Films is cooking up something special for us. A bit of casting news would certainly be nice, though, because whoever takes over as series lead is going to have a tough time following in the footsteps of Milla Jovovich.