A new Resident Evil movie is reportedly in the works with a screenplay close to completion. According to a new report, production company Screen Gems is giving this adaptation a significantly bigger budget than 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which tried to faithfully adapt the first two games in the franchise (to very underwhelming results).
As reported by Insider Fandom, Screen Gems is now working on a new Resident Evil movie with a bigger budget than Welcome to Raccoon City, which is estimated to have had a budget of $25 million (only earning $41 million at the worldwide box office after scathing reviews). The production company is now pumping the next entry with a higher budget – it’s unclear if this will be a direct sequel to Welcome to Raccoon City or be another reboot with new actors.
Casting and filming will commence soon, according to the report. Nothing official has been announced regarding a new Resident Evil movie but we’ll surely hear more about it in the coming months.
There have been quite a few attempts at turning Capcom’s best-selling survival horror franchise into movies and television shows. The most infamous of those was Paul W.S. Anderson’s take on Resident Evil which spawned seven movies starring Milla Jovovich as a newly-written character named Alice. She navigates the world and familiar characters of the games, though it plays with the lore quite loosely.
Netflix released a Resident Evil television series which followed an original story about Albert Wesker’s daughters. The series was critically panned on release and swiftly canned after one season. 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City attempted to more faithfully adapt the plots of the first two games in a condensed movie format, though it was criticised for feeling rushed and did little to elevate its source material, if at all.
On a more positive note, the franchise has also been adapted into CG-animated movies – Degeneration, Damnation, Vendetta and Death Island – that were somewhat better received by fans, though they aren’t particularly seen as great movies either.
Source: Insider Fandom