Cregger On “Resident Evil” Timeline, Leon Absence

The teaser trailer for “Weapons” filmmaker Zach Cregger’s new “Resident Evil” film premiered the other day, and so far the reaction has been surprisingly divided.

In particular, it’s the fans of the games who have been the most vocal in their displeasure regarding its faithfulness.

Cregger has now gone on the horror subreddit to talk about some of the big moments from the trailer, discuss his inspiration for the film, and answer some fan questions about where the movie sits in the franchise overall.

First up, he confirms that the events of the film take place in parallel with those of the “Resident Evil 2” game. He also deliberately didn’t want to include existing lore characters, such as Leon Kennedy, as it goes against what he’s trying to achieve:

“I wanted this movie to tell the story of what would happen if some idiot like me were dropped into the world of a RE game. So Austin [Abrams] plays not some badass with combat experience like Leon, but just an average dude. That makes his experience of moving through this hellscape way more interesting to me than somebody who’s psychologically equipped.”

Speaking with PlayStation Blog, he did confirm the film will incorporate some of the structure of the games, including movement between set pieces and weapon upgrades as he goes, but he deliberately didn’t want to so a simple re-telling of a specific game:

“I wanted to do a movie that was following a character from point A to point B, because that’s what those games do so well. You go on this crazy journey, and you go through all these different environments, and things just seem to be escalating and escalating. That feels so cinematic to me.

So I wanted to tell a story that could take place in the Resident Evil world, but wasn’t telling a story that the games had already told. To me, I would feel like there’s kind of no winning there if I were to tell Leon’s story, because the games do such a great job. It would just be kind of redundant, and ultimately, I think, disappointing. So I would rather just kind of celebrate everything I love about the games by telling the story that could exist on the sidelines of one of the games.”

Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Johnno Wilson co-star in the film which Cregger co-wrote with Shay Hatten. The new “Resident Evil” opens in cinemas on September 18th.