After being met with universal acclaim for his previous horror projects, Barbarian and Weapons, director Zach Cregger has been dealing with quite a bit of backlash for his upcoming Resident Evil reboot - even though nobody has seen more than the first 30 minutes of the movie.
A lot of fans are unhappy with Cregger's decision to ignore the established lore of the video games by introducing new characters and storylines.
"There are different kinds of Resident Evil fans," Cregger tells THR when asked about the negative response. "There are fans like me who love the experience of playing the games and think there’s never been a movie that has represented what it feels like to play Resident Evil. That’s how I categorize myself as a fan. Then there are fans of the games who specifically love the lore and the characters and the nitty-gritty details of the backstory.
But my movie is not spending a lot of currency on those things. I’m not putting any of the legacy characters into this movie. So if that is what you love about these games, then you’re going to feel a certain way about it. 'Here comes yet another Hollywood movie, and they’re once again not doing Leon and all the characters I was hoping they were going to do.'"
"I understand that perspective, but at the same time, I can’t let that affect my output. I have to make the best version of this movie that I’m capable of making and devote myself entirely to it. I cannot be worried about whether I am pleasing enough of every spectrum of fandom. If I tried to please everybody, I’d end up pleasing nobody. That much is obvious," he adds.
For the most part, Cregger stuck to his guns and made the movie he set out to make, but he did implement a few changes after feedback from test screenings.
"I learned that people really liked the movie, but they thought it was too funny. So over the course of my testing, I stripped out as much of the jokes as possible. I then found that not only did the audience enjoy the movie more, but I also liked the movie a lot more. A little bit of humor goes a long way in a horror movie, and there’s not a single joke I took out of this movie that I miss. So that perspective was really helpful."
Based on reactions to the first half an hour, Resident Evil is still pretty funny, so perhaps Cregger removed a lot of the jokes from the later part of the movie.
The filmmaker was also asked about the ending, and while he didn't give much away, he did say that fans will be surprised by how the movie wraps up.
"In a word, bigger. But I want to say so much more. I also think it’s surprising. I love the ending, and I’m very excited for people to see the ending. It’s so hard for me not to talk about it. The ending packs a punch. I’m really proud of it."
You can check out a new TV spot below.
From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) comes a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise. In an all-new story, Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
The cast also includes Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser. Cregger directs from a screenplay he wrote with Shay Hatten, and producers include Robert Kulzer, Zach Cregger, Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, Carter Swan, and Asad Qizilbash. The executive producers are Oliver Berben, Victor Hadida, Richard Wright, and Robert Bernacci.
Resident Evil is set to be released in theaters on September 18.