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Sony’s upcoming Resident Evil movie reboot looks set to mark a departure from other film adaptations in the franchise, with director Zach Cregger hinting at a narrative that’s more rooted in the game’s themes and lore.
Appearing at Sony Pictures’ presentation at CinemaCon 2025, Cregger explained that the movie will be “unlike any of the previous films” in the franchise, alluding to a more grounded experience compared to the campy, action-focused nature of Paul W. S. Anderson’s Milla Jovovich-led sextuple.
“There’s a moment that comes in almost every Resident Evil game where you find yourself in a dark passageway, your health is almost zero and there’s no way around, you have to go through but you know there’s something awful for you in the darkness,” Cregger said during his presentation. “That is a thrill that the Resident Evil games have perfected… My movie will be built in the spirit of those games and follows one central protagonist from point A to point B, as they descend deeper into hell.”
The Resident Evil reboot is on track to meet its planned release in September 2026, with a shoot planned in Europe this Summer. Casting-wise, the film has also set eyes on Euphoria star Austin Abrams as its leading man, although specifics on which character he will portray are still being kept under wraps for now.
Cregger will cowrite the movie’s script with Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapter 4, Army of the Dead), with Constantin Film, Vertigo Entertainment, and PlayStation Productions serving as its producers. According to the Hollywood Reporter’s sources, the project is “decidedly on the horror track” and will include “elements of a wilderness survival thriller”.
With his experience helming 2022’s Barbarian, a horror film about a young woman struggling to survive the night in an Airbnb while being stalked by a beast known as The Mother, Cregger looks set to finally bring the long-running survival horror game franchise to the big screen in a way that can resonate with fans, evoking the same claustrophobic tension seen in Capcom’s classic 1996 video game, although all this remains to be seen as more details are revealed ahead of Resident Evil’s release on 18 September 2026.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
