For nearly 20 years, the Resident Evil movies were shaped by six films from director Paul W.S. Anderson, starring Milla Jovovich as Alice and earning over $1 billion worldwide. In contrast, the 2021 reboot, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, made just $42 million globally.
Barbarian and Weapons director Zach Cregger was then given the reins for a brand-new Resident Evil movie. A lifelong fan of the franchise, Cregger’s film is an original tale set within it, drawing inspiration from multiple games.
Ahead of its release this month, here’s a closer look at everything we know about the new Resident Evil movie so far, from its release date through to Cregger promising viewers a gory thrill ride of a film.
Who is starring in Resident Evil?
Austin Abrams, known from Euphoria and The Walking Dead, leads the Resident Evil cast. He previously worked with Cregger on Weapons and now plays a medical courier in this film. The cast also includes Zach Cherry, Johnno Wilson, Paul Walter Hauser, and Kali Reis.
When is the Resident Evil movie coming out?
Resident Evil will hit theaters on September 18, 2026, just a few months after the game franchise celebrates its 30th anniversary.
What is the Resident Evil movie about?
Recent trailers for Resident Evil have indicated that it will be set during the infamous Raccoon City Incident. In the games, this event happens when Umbrella’s biological experiments escape from the Spencer Mansion, causing a mass infection in the city. Resident Evil 2 and 3 take place during this outbreak, and the city is eventually destroyed by a missile strike to stop the virus.
Speaking at CinemaCon, Cregger said that Resident Evil will have “no narrative acrobatics, time jumps or disorienting chapter things,” and that audiences will be “locked in with a protagonist on a foot journey through a world hellbent on destroying them.”
Cregger also said he was given “carte blanche” to reinvent Resident Evil. He described the project as a love letter to the survival-horror video game series.
“In an all-new story, Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos,” the official synopsis for the film reads.
Cregger also said he was given “carte blanche” to reinvent Resident Evil. He described the project as a love letter to the survival-horror video game series.
Resident Evil movie trailers
There isn’t just one trailer for Resident, but two! We’ve embedded them below for you to check out.
Will Leon Kennedy be in the Resident Evil movie?
You won’t see familiar characters like Leon S. Kennedy or Claire Redfield in this Resident Evil movie. Cregger plans to tell a new story with original characters.
“I’m telling a story that is a love letter to the games and follows the rules of the games,” explained Cregger. “It is obedient to the lore of the games , it’s just a different story. I’m not going to tell Leon’s story, because Leon’s story is told in the games. [Fans] already have that.”
“[Resident Evil is] an original screenplay,” added Cregger in a separate interview. “It’s a weird story. I wrote it, and I love the story. It has nothing to do with any of the other Resident Evil movies. If I do my job, it will feel fresh and edgy and weird.”
Resident Evil runtime
Don’t expect to sit down for an overly long movie, as Resident Evil has a runtime of around 95 minutes. Expect a pretty fast-paced film, as Cregger said that the entire movie feels like “one gigantic sequence,” and that things begin to “pop off” five minutes into the flick. And from there? Things will only escalate.
Will Resident Evil be gory?
You better believe it will be. Abrams almost died during the filming of a scene that saw 150-pound blood bags hurled at him, and Cregger has teased that the movie will have “really wild” sequences with “f**ked up and weird” imagery.
Thanks to the total freedom he was given, Cregger added that Resident Evil is the most violent thing he’s ever worked on and that it was important for him to be “grotesque” with it.
Resident Evil box office predictions
At the time of writing, Resident Evil is projected to have an opening North American weekend of $40 – $50 million, which will be a record-breaking debut when compared to the box office performance of previous Resident Evil movies.
Resident Evil movie posters
Will there be a gross Resident Evil popcorn bucket?
Kind of! Popcorn bucket fans can grab one that resembles the organ-transport bag that Abrams’ character has in the movie. Don’t worry, it doesn’t come with a freshly harvested human heart.
Will Resident Evil be campy action like the previous movies?
According to Cregger, he hasn’t seen any of the Resident Evil movies. Instead of following their example, he intends to recreate the tone of dread from the games.
“I haven’t seen the [earlier Resident Evil] movies, but they don’t seem to promise that feeling [of dread],” said Cregger. “So I wanted to write a story that would just really lean into that. Honor the games–be true to the lore of what’s going on. But I’m not telling any of the stories of the games. It’s a separate story that just happens to exist in that territory.”
“If there are people out there who are rabid fans of the movie franchise, they are probably not really prepared for what I am going to be doing. But I think fans of the games are going to be stoked,” he said.
In an interview with Double Toasted, Cregger said his Resident Evil movie will be “true to the experience” of the video games, and probably “lives in the world” of Resident Evil 2 and 3, but that it adheres more to the tone of Resident Evil 4. The game is not a direct adaptation of any Resident Evil game, however.
Cregger said the video games, too, don’t have a set lore and aren’t rigid with timelines or settings. “I don’t think I am taking any more liberties with this [movie] than the game franchise does. I think I am coloring within the lines,” he said.
“I’ve never seen a movie like it,” he added. “I am beyond excited making this.”
The director added that his sense of tone and his general filmmaking sensibilities honed with Barbarian and Weapons will come through in Resident Evil, albeit on a bigger scale and with a bigger budget.
“It takes place in the world of the games, but most importantly, the journey you’ll have as a viewer watching this movie is going to be similar to the journey you have as a player when you play these games. What that means is it follows one protagonist from point A to point B as they descend deeper and deeper and deeper into hell,” he said. “As someone who has played I don’t know how many thousands and thousands of hours of Resident Evil, I just feel like I know how that pacing can go, and it’s inherently cinematic. I feel like there is a great movie that can live inside this world and inside that sort of pacing. I am really, really pumped about the story that we get to tell here.”
