It’s been two years since Barbarian broke out as one of the most surprising films of 2022, but horror fans are still curious about director Zach Cregger’s next project. The filmmaker was briefly attached to helm a remake of Clue for Sony Pictures — at least according to journalist Jeff Sneider — but now Sneider reports that Cregger has moved on to a more appropriate project.
Just days after Sneider’s unofficial announcement, The InSneider now reports that Cregger is teaming up with Sony to reboot one of its most infamous franchises. The director is now attached to a new Resident Evil film, “a full reboot that would start from scratch” after two failed attempts to revive the saga.
Resident Evil was something of a phenomenon in the 2000s, when Milla Jovovich starred in a whopping six films loosely based on Sony and Capcom’s survival horror games. Jovovich played Alice, a character created for the films, and though her story began with a connection to the games, it spiraled into an adventure all its own. While 2002’s Resident Evil made plenty of money at the box office (and redefined the traditional zombie movie in a major way), its sequels got flack from fans of the original stories. Jovovich was a viable action star, but people wanted adaptations that skewed truer to the games.
Sony sort of tried that approach with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, the franchise’s long-awaited reboot. The 2021 film combined the events of 1996’s Resident Evil and its sequel, Resident Evil 2, in one fell swoop, finally bringing the beloved game characters onto the big screen. But the film just wasn’t very well-received, nor was Netflix’s own contribution to the saga, a sequel series that premiered in 2022.
After two failed attempts to bring Resident Evil into the present day, it’s surprising that Sony would be so keen to try again. But there are few directors more capable than Cregger, and in hindsight, Barbarian was a fitting audition for a creature-filled franchise like Resident Evil. Cregger also clearly knows what to do with capable final girls, which means that characters like Claire Redfield and Jill Valentine will be in great hands. This is still all speculation, but hopefully Cregger does get the chance to tackle Resident Evil. With him at the helm, the franchise might finally get the adaptation it deserves.
