sisslethecat
After six Alice-lead films, 2021’s hard reboot, and the flaming debris of Netflix’s short-lived television series, the future of Resident Evil on screen has been in question for the last few months. Not really speculation on whether or not they’d keep making them, that’s never been in doubt as the series continues to be one of the highest-grossing and longest-running video game-to-screen adaptions ever, but more so to do with what direction they’d take next. The aforementioned reboot Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City didn’t totally flop (clearing its budget at the box office and reportedly did very well on VOD), but it hardly had the take of the original films. Well, we seem to have possibly gotten our answer thanks to a new report from website Giant Freaking Robot: a big screen adaption of Resident Evil 4.
According to our trusted and proven sources, the critically disdained but long-running series will be revived with a new movie based on Resident Evil 4, perhaps the most beloved of the entire video game series. Accordingly, this new movie will focus on the fan-favorite character Leon S. Kennedy.
Not a lot to go on, but they make a point of hyperlinking to their track record with the sources they’re sighting in the report. At the moment, there’s no real way of knowing if this will be another hard reboot (recasting Leon again and set in a new continuity) or if it will be the direct sequel to Welcome to Raccoon City (sticking with Avan Jogia as Leon). There is actually some evidence to back up it being the latter, as Welcome to Raccoon City‘s writer/director Johannes Roberts already expressed interest in doing so:
“I could very much see [Resident Evil 4] becoming part of the next installment. There’s a lot of interesting lore and tiny details that we have brought into this movie, but would be amazing to expand on. There are characters that we didn’t use in this game that we would love to expand upon in the next movie.”
Chris Redfield’s actor Robbie Amell also commented that he knows Roberts was interested in telling the stories of Code: Veronica and Resident Evil 4 on the big screen eventually, so signs are very much starting to point to that being the case here. Of course, the real question is: will this film be just Resident Evil 4, or will it try to cross paths with Code: Veronica as well? Personally, I really hope it’s one or the other, as one of Welcome to Raccoon City‘s biggest faults was trying to smash the events of Resident Evils 1 and 2 into one narrative (about 20 hours of video game whittled into an hour and 45 minutes).
Of course, trying to move ahead directly to Resident Evil 4 (bypassing not just Code: Veronica but several other stories in between) could also cause a lot of difficulties narratively, as what players are willing to accept (the sudden 6-year gap that saw Leon essentially becoming a new character and major events like the fall of Umbrella happening off-screen) is very different than what casual filmgoers are. Tying in elements of Code: Veronica (like Wesker’s larger role, swapping out Saddler for the Ashfords) could work as opposed to trying to make both stories happen congruent with each other. Then again, swapping Ashley out for Claire (who starts Code: Veronica imprisoned) and Steve out for Leon (her ‘knight in shining armor’) wouldn’t be too difficult. We can speculate all day tho, and if anything I’m mostly just hoping to finally see Las Plagas done justice on screen (after Paul WS Anderson butchered them).
For now, Resident Evil 4 goodness can be found in the imminent release of Resident Evil 4 Remake on the 24th of this month, and the next animated film, Resident Evil: Death Island, is due out sometime later this year.
[Source]
