Jonathan Millar 
Anil Krishna 
James Oconner 
Why aren’t the typical Resident Evil heroes in the new Resident Evil movie?
The eyes of horror movie fans are all on Zach Cregger’s new Resident Evil film, produced by Sony Pictures and set to hit theaters on September 17. One surprising detail, however, concerns the story’s protagonists… In fact, the studio confirmed that the new Resident Evil movie will not feature the canonical characters from the famous, long-running video game series: no Chris or Claire Redfield, no Leon S. Kennedy or Jill Valentine. Zach Cregger’s approach promises to bring only new faces to the setting of Raccoon City.
This isn’t the first time the franchise has taken this approach, given that even the Resident Evil films starring Milla Jovovich introduced a new protagonist, although as the series progressed, they also introduced reimagined versions of classic characters from the video game series; in contrast, the most recent Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City brought all the best-known characters to the big screen—Leon, Claire, Chris, even Ada Wong and Albert Wesker—but with dismal results.
This time, with his Resident Evil film, Cregger—director of Barbarian and Weapons—promises a breath of fresh air: a completely original story, with characters he created himself, set within a context well-known to fans—namely, the fall of Raccoon City during the first wave of the zombie outbreak, as depicted in the video game Resident Evil 2. The director explained the reasoning behind this narrative choice: in his view, attempting to include any of those classic characters would have risked seeming forced and unnatural, especially in the context of what will be an original story.
The plot of Resident Evil will follow an ordinary man—a medical courier—who must transport a package from point A to point B, and during his journey, he’ll have to survive the most terrifying night in Raccoon City’s history; clearly, it would have been almost ridiculous if the protagonist had “run into” familiar faces from the series here and there, going about their business parallel to the events of the video games. Zach Cregger’s decision is therefore understandable, and it seems like a smart middle ground between creativity and the typical guidelines of a film franchise: we have the Resident Evil name and the narrative world of these beloved horror games, but within it we’ll find original characters created by Zach Cregger.
See you on September 17!
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