Resident Evil movie director says he was not prepared for fan backlash
Sony Pictures
One of the hottest horror directors on the planet adapting the world’s most popular scary video game series?
On paper Zach Cregger and Resident Evil are the perfect unholy alliance.
The film-maker was widely praised for his original, imaginative work on horror hits Weapons and Barbarian and is a long-time fan of the video game series.
But in the lead-up to the film’s release, Cregger’s spent a lot of time defending himself against complaints he’s cashing in on the Resident Evil name.
Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, the director says he was “not prepared” for what came his way.
Capcom
First launched in 1996 on the original Sony PlayStation by Japanese developer Capcom, Resident Evil was a sensation.
Rather than casting players as super-powered characters, as was the case with most video games in the 90s, it forced them to survive with limited re
Thanks to smart reinventions and remakes, the series has managed to stay relevant, selling a total of 213 million copies since its debut.
Some of its characters are among the most well-known in video games, and there are whole communities dedicated to discussing the lore of their universe.
Cregger’s Resident Evil follows the story of Bryan, an original character played by Austin Abrams who worked with the director on Weapons.
He’s a courier who agrees to deliver a package to a hospital in Raccoon City – a key location from the games.
As Bryan makes his way to the drop-off, it becomes apparent he is caught in the middle of some sort of viral outbreak, with the infected becoming monstrous creatures.
When the first trailer appeared online, many users swamped comment sections to complain about what they’d seen.
Where were the beloved characters? The familiar monsters?
Cregger says he had little interest in simply retelling the story of the Resident Evil games, but that didn’t seem to calm some fans.
“I think I was naive,” he says.
“I think I was expecting people to be excited to see a Resident Evil movie that felt in the spirit of the games.
“What I was trying to do is make a movie that really honoured the experience of playing them.”
Sony Pictures
According to most reviews, Cregger has achieved what he set out to do.
In its three-star review, NMEasked whether it was “the first great horror movie game adaptation“.
“For a large chunk of the film’s runtime, the answer is a resounding yes,” wrote reviewer Jordan Bassett, who said Bryan’s encounters become repetitive as the film wears on.
Doug Jamieson, of The Jam Report, awarded four stars and said Cregger “understands adaptation as translation rather than imitation”.
In an eight out of 10 review, Looper critic Alastair Ryder wrote: “Zach Cregger has done the best job I’ve seen of translating the experience of playing a video game and making it feel cinematic.”
The verdict from fans remains to be seen, but Resident Evil looks to be on track to have a successful opening weekend at the box office.
It follows recent video game adaptations such as the Minecraft and Super Mario Bros films, which were poorly reviewed but hugely popular.
Sony Pictures
This isn’t the first adaptation of Resident Evil, which was brought to cinema screens in 2002 – the first of six films overseen by writer-director Paul WS Anderson.
His wife, Milla Jovovich, starred in each one, and while they have grown a cult following they were never a hit with critics.
A 2021 “reboot” heavily based on the games and a 2022 Netflix series also failed to impress.
The live-action rights to Resident Evil are owned by German production company Constantin Film – a fact fans have blamed for the perceived low quality of previous adaptations.
Reports online suggest the company’s agreement with Capcom prevents Constantin from setting its films in the same timeline as the games.
Cregger told Newsbeat he’d had no contact with the game developer while working on the film.
“Nobody from Capcom ever reached out to me, ever, in any way,” he said.
Constantin Film declined to comment, but BBC Newsbeat has been told there was co-ordination between the developer and the film’s producers behind the scenes.
Cregger says it’s “probably” impossible to please everyone, but it was never his intention to recreate the game on-screen.
“If I had delivered a faithful retelling of one of the stories in the games, I feel like those people would probably be upset with me for that too,” he says.
“Because I would have messed it up somehow, inevitably.
“So all I can do is just tell the story that I think is going to be the very best story.
“If somebody’s going to have a problem that it doesn’t do exactly what they had in their mind of what a Resident Evil movie is, I can’t say anything to that.”
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