Zach Cregger may have designed Resident Evil as a standalone trip into Raccoon City, but apparently the monsters are still lurking around in his head.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker has carved out a great place for himself in horror, and now he’s bringing his twisted sensibilities to one of gaming’s biggest survival horror franchises.
While his Resident Evil movie was created to tell a complete story, Cregger says he’s already coming up with ideas about where things could go next.
Speaking with ComicBook alongside star Austin Abrams, Cregger was asked whether he viewed Resident Evil as a one-and-done project or something that could grow into another movie.
“This movie was designed to be a one-off, so that itch was scratched, yes. But I can’t help myself. Like there are always ideas percolating, and I already have some thoughts of like what could happen… going forward. So who knows, dude; anything can happen.”
Cregger has been pretty clear in the past about which of his movies he wants to revisit. When it came to Barbarian, he didn’t sound particularly interested in making a direct sequel.
He previously said, “Barbarian 2, not for me. Not gonna happen from me. Never say never, I could have an amazing idea tomorrow and be off to the races, but I doubt it.”
His attitude toward Weapons was different. That film is expanding with a spinoff centered on Aunt Gladys, the villain played by Oscar winner Amy Madigan.
So while a Resident Evil sequel obviously isn’t confirmed, Cregger already having ideas makes the possibility interesting. If the movie performs well at the box office, there’s certainly plenty of material in the Resident Evil universe for him to keep playing with.
The new film stars Abrams as Bryan, a courier tasked with transporting a live organ of vital importance to Raccoon City at the worst possible time.
The T-Virus outbreak is tearing through the city, transforming humans and animals into horrific creatures, and Bryan has to survive the nightmare long enough to finish his delivery. Whether that organ could also play a part in stopping the outbreak remains another question.
Abrams has been spending plenty of time in horror lately. He previously worked with Cregger on Weapons, playing James, the street kid and drug addict whose habit of breaking into homes leads him into a particularly nasty situation.
Following Resident Evil in September, Abrams will return to theaters in October with the survival horror movie Whalefall, which looks great!
Apparently, making Resident Evil presented its own special kind of challenge. Cregger has talked about structuring the movie to capture the progression of the games, where solving one problem leads into another challenge, encounter, or massive set piece.
Bryan is essentially moving through a nightmare from point A to point B while everything around him keeps getting worse. The problem for Abrams was that they didn’t actually shoot that journey in order.
Keeping track of Bryan’s physical and emotional condition became one of the hardest parts of the production. Abrams had to remember exactly how exhausted, injured, and blood-covered his character should be during scenes filmed completely outside the story’s chronology.
“I feel like we were constantly kind of talking like, ‘Wait, where am I here?’ You know, like how tired am I? How hurt am I? Even tracking something like the blood throughout: like, how much blood do I have on me? That was really important.”
That continuity wasn’t only about makeup and blood. Abrams also needed Bryan’s performance to change naturally as his horrible night in Raccoon City became progressively worse.
Cregger admitted that maintaining that progression was tricky. “That was something that was a little overwhelming, honestly, because you don’t want to be playing the same gear all through the movie.
“You need to have a trajectory to your tone, and that’s difficult when you’re chopping it up and shuffling the deck. But I think it’s a testimony to his skill as an actor that it really does track.”
If Cregger can translate that escalating survival horror experience to the big screen, this could be a pretty cool new direction for the franchise. The fact that he’s already thinking about what might come afterward only makes things more interesting.
Resident Evil hits theaters September 17.
