As Zach Cregger’s Weapons heads to theaters, the director is already working on his next project. He’s taking on a Resident Evil reboot film, which doesn’t have a title yet. We know that Austin Abrams will star in this film and, according to Deadline, Paul Walter Hauser will also be in Resident Evil in a currently undisclosed role.
There are quite a few Resident Evil movies in the franchise, and a reboot just happened in 2021 with Welcome to Raccoon City. However, this Resident Evil reboot with Cregger and Sony Pictures aims to honor the games in specific ways to tell an epic story.
“I played all of the games,” Cregger said to Comicbook.com. “I played Resident Evil 4 a hundred times through. I’m obsessed with it. And so, I just want to tell a story that feels like it’s honoring the experience you get when you play the games.”
Most recently, Cregger noted that, this Resident Evil movie is an entirely original story that will keep the universe of the game’s unaltered. He shares, “It’s an entirely original story. When you watch it, you’ll be like, ‘This is very Zach.’ It’s just [that] it takes place in the Resident Evil world. I don’t think fans of the games are gonna be bummed. … I respect the games enough where I’m gonna like tell a Resident Evil story in the Resident Evil canon that still leaves everything they love intact from the games, you know what I mean?”
Cregger admits that he hasn’t seen any of the franchise’s films because that’s isn’t his thing. However, his love for the games feel like a playground to craft a story that, in his words, “is going to rip.”
He spoke about the Resident Evil reboot at CinemaCon previously, noting big hallmarks of the games that will show up in this film. “There’s a moment that comes in every moment of every Resident Evil game where you find yourself standing in the mouth of a dark passageway. One shot in the gun is left,” he said. “You know that something horrible is waiting for you in that darkness, that awful moment where you have to will yourself. That’s something that every Resident Evil game has perfected and has kept me and millions of other players returning to the series for decades.”
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot film will follow a main protagonist, played by Austin Abrams, and hit theaters on September 18, 2026.