The Resident Evil films loosely based on the video game series of the same name have never been the best video game adaptations ever but they have been widely successful. Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s films (along with the ones he didn’t direct, Apocalypse and Extinction) starring Milla Jovovich managed to rake in over $1 billion worldwide and we’ll be seeing a reboot on the way but perhaps with the absence of Anderson.
Anderson and Jovovich are already busy working on a Monster Hunter film that’s looking to be pretty interesting in itself. This new Resident Evil reboot looks like it may follow a different approach this time around, going the more horror route with James Wan as producer. The games themselves have seen different directions with the earlier games being more horror centered and everything from the fourth game being more action oriented. That is until the seventh game was released last year.
It looks like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard would be the one of the inspiration for the film reboot as revealed by screenwriter Greg Russo. In an interview with Discussing Film, Russo discussed his time on the project including his inspiration for the film’s tone. He said:
“I’m a huge fan of the franchise so to work on that was a lot of fun. And they’ve made six films before so when you come back to that and reboot it, you wanna do something different and not just rehash. 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.”
That’s pretty damn good as Resident Evil 7 was a great horror game with saw the series go back to basics after the more action oriented fifth and sixth entry in the series. Although this does sound like good news, this may not ultimately be the case as Russo is no longer attached to the project and isn’t sure if his script would even be used. He explained:
“I worked on the reboot for about a year and then Producer James Wan came in, my involvement on that project has kind of concluded, so I’m not sure what they’ll really do with it, I submitted my draft to the producers and they were happy with it and ultimately they’ll do what they will with the property but I’m currently not involved with that film”
It would no doubt be great if the Resident Evil reboot goes this route cause at the end of the day, horror is at the core of the series. Hopefully, we get something special as averse to the mediocre films that Anderson delivered before.
Source: Discussing Film
