James Wan Will Produce The 'Resident Evil' Reboot [UPDATED]
Update: Deadline reports that Insidious, The Conjuring, Furious 7, and Aquaman director James Wan is on board to produce the Resident Evil reboot. Considering his history with the horror genre, this choice certainly does suggest that the new films will hew closer to the tone of the original games. Greg Russo will write the script. The original story follows below.
The Resident Evil film franchise that starred Milla Jovovich and was directed entirely by filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson came to an end earlier this year with Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. The video game movie series finale may have only grossed nearly $27 million at the domestic box office, but it raked in over $285 million internationally on a budget of just $40 million. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a Resident Evil reboot is already being developed overseas.
The German production company Constantin Film is currently developing a Resident Evil reboot, and currently the plan is to have the story span six total movies, just like the film franchise that just concluded. This isn't just putting the horse before the cart, this is throwing the cart halfway across the world before the horse has even learned to walk.
Variety first reported the news of the Resident Evil reboot after speaking with Martin Moszkowicz, chairman of the board at Constantin Film, at the Cannes Film Festival. The German company produced all the installments of the previous Resident Evil franchise, and they still own the movie rights to the video game series. Clearly they want to keep milking it for all its worth in the international box office scene.
As of now, there's no word on who would direct the first film in the rebooted franchise, who will take the lead role, or if the franchise would have any connection to the original film series. The only thing we know right now is that the plan is to turn the video game property into another six-movie franchise.
While I'm not surprised that the Resident Evil franchise is being rebooted, I'm surprised that it's going into development so soon. Along with that, it's a little ridiculous that Constantin Films is already looking at crafting a six film franchise. Warner Bros. Pictures attempted to do the same thing with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, but that plan was abandoned before the movie hit theaters. Can't studios just think about one movie at a time instead of trying to plan an entire franchise from the get-go.
The upside of a Resident Evil reboot, at least for fans of the video game franchise, is that this creates the opportunity to have movies that are more loyal to the games on which it will be based. While the Resident Evil franchise was inspired by the games and brought characters from them to the big screen, it differed greatly from the stories in them, which frustrated many fans.