Just when we thought The Final Chapter was the Resident Evil film franchise’s final chapter, Constantin Films, the German owners of the long-running video game’s movie rights, told Variety they plan on rebooting the franchise into a new six-film series. Considering the games have shifted tonally at least a half-dozen times, and the movies were widely-panned (although big money makers overseas), you have to wonder where they’re going to go with the reboots.
A Straight Action-Adventure Like We’ve Seen Before
This is pretty much where the Milla Jovovich movies land. They came out before the big zombie boom, and existed within the boom, but never were really that good. They were just pure, dumb action. There’s a reason why U.S. audiences didn’t really take to the movies — they were incoherent and mostly eye candy, exactly the type of movie that overseas moviegoers love. Hence, $1.3 billion in ticket sales, and more movies to come. Does this mean we’ll get more campy goodness? Probably not. They already did it, but then, movie studios aren’t really known for risk taking. It’s certainly possible that we just get six more goofy action movies.
The Slow Burn Horror Mystery Of The Original Games
A dark, foreboding house in the middle of the woods leaves stranded special forces agents with no way out. As they make their way deeper inside the sprawling mansion, a series of horrors reveal themselves as they struggle to make it out alive. Cool premise for a movie, too bad the first Resident Evil movie couldn’t really capture the classic horror of the original games. Perhaps they’ll go back to what made the original beloved — dusty hallways illuminated by lightning strikes as a fresh terror awaits around every corner. Jump scares abound with nods to George A. Romero.
An Anthology Series Full Of Loosely-Related Stories
Just when the Resident Evil games were getting stale, Resident Evil 4 upped the ante with more action and a brand-new setting away from the Umbrella Chronicles that defined the first five or so games. Would the new rebooted movies weave a collection of loosely-connected plots like the non-numbered Star Wars movies? Like the X-Files of Resident Evil? One year, a movie could follow Leon S. Kennedy’s adventures in Spain as he takes on possessed villagers, the next could be Resident Evil: Code Veronica, then Chris’ time in Africa and on and on. There are so many side-plots and interesting characters that this could make for an intriguing way to tell the stories that avoid the platitudes of the previous RE movies.
TheTexas Chainsaw Massacre-Inspired Psychological Terror Of Resident Evil 7
Resident Evil 7 shook up the series further by putting the player directly behind the eyes of their avatar and made the game far less about action and way more about being stuck in a house while trying to escape from a family of flesh-eating lunatics. It was terrifying and brought a huge amount of success back to the series with its novel take on the horror genre. Outlast, and Amnesia and The Evil Within have proved that this direction is a winner, and it could make for a great movie, even if the inspiration is well-worn territory at this point.
The rebooted movies have a lot of directions to go in, so hopefully, they choose one that is interesting to fans and aren’t just loosely-based nods to what made the games culturally relevant. The “original” movies were never wholly embraced by fans of the games, and that’s fine, but we all know they could’ve transcended and been great horror movies, not just movies based on great horror games.
(Via Variety)