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Despite filming wrapping at the end of last month, details regarding the new Resident Evil reboot film just keep flowing! Joining an already surprisingly huge cast of game characters (including not just playable stars but also side characters like Richard and Irons), the new film will apparently be featuring the on-screen debuts of Resident Evil‘s Enrico Marini and Resident Evil 2‘s Ben Bertolucci. Both actors announced their roles via social media, with one being on Twitter, the other on Instagram.
Josh Cruddas, who appeared in Polar, Ghost Writer, and Future Man, announced that he shot footage last month for the new film as Ben Bertolucci. If you don’t recall, Ben is the freelance journalist who Leon finds locked up in the R.P.D.’s cellblock in Resident Evil 2. Despite his minimal screentime, Ben’s actually a rather integral piece of Raccoon City’s puzzle, unraveling the mystery of the G-Virus and police chief Brian Iron’s corruption — until everything went to hell that is. Ben has appeared in four games (three of which are versions of RE2), and it’s amazing to know that he’ll be appearing in the film as well.
#ResidentEvil fans! Had the REdiculous honour to play my first videogame/comic book character last month and though I know #BenBertolucci is way better looking than me, trust us on this one 😉
Huge thx to @ConstantinFilm and the entire team! #ResidentEvilReboot @IGN @GamesRadar pic.twitter.com/T5EshCwnYB
— Josh Cruddas (@joshcruddas) January 10, 2021
The other new cast member is Sammy Azero, who will be appearing in The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes, set to release later this year. While Azero didn’t make quite as big an announcement as Cruddas, he did update his Instagram bio to include having been cast in the new Resident Evil film as Enrico Marini. Enrico, of course, is the captain of S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team, the doomed first responders to the mansion incident in Resident Evil 0. Enrico is a surprising choice for appearing in the film, as his role is even more limited than Ben’s, appearing for only about a minute total between Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil, giving orders to Rebecca in the former and being shot mid-sentence in the latter. His inclusion, along with Richard Aiken’s, is starting to give me hope that characters like Rebecca and Barry may be making appearances as well, even if their roles are very limited.
All that said, the scope of the film is starting to become somewhat staggering, as we now have confirmation that at least twelve separate characters from across the first two games in the series will be appearing. Save for several of these roles being reduced to mere cameos or the film being four hours long, I’m not sure how they’re going to be able to fit everyone. Still, the cast is encouraging compared to the grand majority of the characters of the previous films being original and the game cast being relegated to sidekicks of Alice, who of course doesn’t exist in the games either. The new film is headlined exclusively by the game’s cast, with Jill Valentine and Claire Redfield seemingly the film’s leads as they’re being played by the biggest stars. Of course, it’s also worth mentioning the sets again, which have thus far been absolutely incredible.
We’ll keep you updated as more information is released, which will probably be soon as we’ve been getting a fairly steady drip-feed of new info since filming began late last year. Resident Evil is set to release on September 9th of this year.
