“Weapons” writer and director Zach Cregger is back with another spine-chilling horror movie — this time with an established video game property in “Resident Evil.” He brought his adaptation to CinemaCon, the annual Las Vegas convention for movie theater owners, ahead of its Sept. 18 theatrical release from Sony.
Attendees got a first look at the bloody “Resident Evil” trailer, which reteams Cregger with “Weapons” star Austin Abrams for an original story set in the zombie-infested video game world. The trailer starts out with Abrams’ character stumbling upon an abandoned house in a snowy field, desperate to find a working phone. He frantically calls his girlfriend and apologizes for getting disconnected earlier — and that they may never speak again. Shots of horrifying zombies fill the rest of the trailer, including a pale, bloated monster sitting at the bottom of a sewer. The biggest moment of the trailer comes when Abrams is running through a deserted street as a zombie horde chases him from the rooftops. It ends with zombie bodies splattering violently as the creatures plummet to the ground.
Cregger first made waves as the writer and director of the surprise horror hit “Barbarian” in 2023, after starting out as a founder of the Whitest Kids U’ Know comedy group. His follow-up to “Barbarian,” which made $45 million at the box office on a $4 million budget, was last year’s “Weapons,” another original horror that was an even bigger hit. “Weapons,” about a classroom of kids that went missing in the middle of the night, made $270 million from a $38 million budget. It also earned star Amy Madigan, who played the creepy witch Aunt Gladys, the Oscar for best supporting actress.
The “Resident Evil” cast also includes Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry and Kali Reis.
“Resident Evil” began as a 1996 horror video game for the PlayStation and soon evolved into a full-blown franchise. Over the years, it has spawned many video game sequels, spinoffs, remakes and film and TV adaptations. Writer and director Paul W. S. Anderson first brought the games to life with Milla Jovovich in six live-action “Resident Evil” films in the 2000s and 2010s. They grossed more than $1 billion at the box office and were once the highest-grossing series based on video games. Johannes Roberts then attempted to reboot the franchise with 2021’s “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City,” but it was a disappointment at the box office and with fans.
Source: variety.com
