Resident Evil: Zach Cregger is making a narrative film with a video game structure
Zach Cregger, writer/director of Barbarian and the recently released film Weapons, is directing a new Resident Evil movie for Sony, aiming for a September 18, 2026 theatrical release. Cregger has said that his movie will be “obedient to the lore” of the Resident Evil video games, but won’t be about the characters from the games, because their stories have already been told in game form. Production is underway, with the streets of Prague being transformed into the video game setting of Raccoon City – and during an interview with Deadline‘s Crew Call podcast, Cregger said that he’s not only bringing the video game setting to the screen in his movie, he’s also trying to give the film a video game structure.
Cregger wrote the screenplay with Shay Hatten (Army of the Dead) and the story apparently harkens back to the original Capcom game’s horror roots. Here’s the supposed logline: Bryan, a laid-back organ courier, is sent on a late-night delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital. En route through a snowy mountain road, he accidentally hits a strange woman with his car. She survives—but something is very wrong. As he tries to help, Bryan stumbles into a full-blown outbreak involving horrifying tentacle-based mutations and bio-engineered monstrosities.
Weapons cast member Austin Abrams has the lead role and is joined in the cast by Paul Walter Hauser (Cobra Kai), Zach Cherry (Severance), Kali Reis (True Detective: Night Country), and Johnno Wilson (I Love That for You). Cherry is said to be playing a scientist at a hospital and Reis is set to play an ex-military character that was initially written for a male actor.
Cregger, a big fan of the Resident Evil video games who has never watched any of the previous movies, has said, “It’s gonna be not at all like Barbarian and Weapons. It’s going to be a rock ’em, sock ’em… it’s for me to play. And turn my brain off and just make an… Evil Dead II… get crazy with the camera. … It’s a weird, fun, wild story. This movie follows a person from point A to point B. It’s like a real time journey, where you just go deeper and deeper into the depths of Hell.“
Constantin Film is producing and co-financing the film. Constantin’s Robert Kulzer, Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee and Miri Yoon, and PlayStation Productions are also producing. Nicole Brown will be overseeing the project for Sony’s Columbia Pictures.
Cregger told Crew Call (with thanks to SuperHeroHype for the transcription), “There’s something about the structure of those games and the pacing of those games that it’s so thrilling to me, and I have never seen a movie that really leans into what those games offer.” He’s excited to bring the tone of the games to his movie and loves “the slow creeping dread that these games naturally kind of exist in.” His movie experiments with “the idea of being able to make a video game structure in a narrative film or reverse back, make a narrative film with the video game structure… I can’t believe that it hasn’t happened yet.“
Are you interested in see what Cregger’s Resident Evil movie and its video game structure will be like? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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