Resident Evil's Director Skipped All 7 Previous Movies

"I was such a fan of the games, and they just didn't look like the games to me." That's Zach Cregger, director of Barbarian and Weapons, explaining why he's never sat through a single one of the seven live-action Resident Evil films. Not the Paul W.S. Anderson originals, not Welcome to Raccoon City. He's seen their trailers. That's it.

Cregger told a virtual press roundtable that the previous movies looked too much like they were trying to be The Matrix, all action and bullet spray, when what makes Resident Evil special is the slow, creeping dread of not having enough ammo for whatever's around the next corner. So when Sony and Constantin Films handed him the keys to yet another reboot, he started from the source: the games themselves.

The first trailer for his Resident Evil movie dropped today, and it looks nothing like what came before. The film opens in theaters on Sept. 18 and will get an IMAX release.

Bryan, Not Leon

Cregger's most interesting decision is also his most controversial one: there's no Leon S. Kennedy, no Chris Redfield, no Jill Valentine. The lead is Bryan, an original character played by Weapons breakout Austin Abrams. He's a hospital courier making a delivery to Raccoon City on the worst possible night. "I never wanted to tell the story of any of the characters from the games," Cregger said in a follow-up interview. "Leon exists in the games. I don't want anyone to ruin that for me."

I think this is exactly the right call, and I'm surprised more people aren't saying so. Every previous attempt to put a game protagonist on screen has either been a pale imitation or a complete reinvention that satisfies nobody. Cregger's logic is sound: the games themselves swap protagonists constantly. Leon isn't in Resident Evil 7 or 8. An original character lets the film live or die on its own merits without fans spending two hours comparing every line reading to a cutscene they've memorized.

The story takes place "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2, meaning Raccoon City is in the middle of its outbreak, but the camera is following someone else entirely. Bryan has to get from one hospital, over a mountain pass, and into the city to deliver something to another hospital. Things go wrong on the way. According to Cregger, "there's basically a climax of the movie every five minutes. It's setpiece after setpiece after setpiece."

Production designer Tom Hammock, who showed press around the Prague sets back in December, described building the city's look directly from Resident Evil 2's aesthetic. The creature designs pull from across the franchise. "You'll see a lot of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 6," Hammock said, pointing to a "creature wall" of mock-ups featuring zombified rats, dogs, and things with tentacles and teeth that go well beyond standard undead. Hammock, a former virologist, grounded the designs in real diseases and medical research before layering on the game-inspired mutations.

First-Person, Third-Person, Both

Here's where it gets properly interesting for anyone who played Resident Evil Requiem, the latest game in the series, which sold 5 million copies in its first five days. Requiem was the first mainline RE game to let players swap between first-person and third-person perspectives at launch. Cregger is borrowing that trick for the film.

"I'm using video game language to always kind of be behind Bryan and swirling around and paying attention to what he's paying attention to," Cregger said. "Sometimes I jump to first-person, sometimes I use standard coverage if he's having a conversation with someone. But I really wanted to embrace that immersive feel that I get when I play the games."

He also cited Sam Raimi's camera work in Evil Dead 2 and the relentless forward momentum of Sam Mendes' 1917 as influences. That combination, Raimi's kinetic horror energy plus 1917's you-are-there pacing, sounds like exactly the kind of filmmaking that could finally make a game adaptation feel like playing the game rather than watching someone else describe it.

I'll be honest: I've been burned by Resident Evil movies before, and Welcome to Raccoon City's failure is still fresh enough that skepticism is reasonable. But Cregger isn't a hired gun. Barbarian was one of the best horror films in years, and everything he's saying about pacing, dread, and resource scarcity suggests he actually understands why these games work. He's not just name-dropping titles; he's pulling specific creature designs from RE4 and RE6, replicating the flashlight-in-darkness tension of a first playthrough, and building sets from RE2's visual language.

The film also stars Zach Cherry, Paul Walter Hauser, Johnno Wilson, and Kali Reis. Cregger co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten, whose credits include John Wick: Chapter 3 and Army of the Dead. Resident Evil hits theaters Sept. 18.