Although we frequently hear about the “video game movie curse”, the rule by which film adaptations of popular video games tend to be mediocre and sometimes box office bombs too… And there are actually numerous examples of this, such as the ill-fated Doom movie or the pretty awful Street Fighter film.
But one movie series based on a popular video game franchise has bucked the trend to date, though. Because director Paul W. Anderson’s Resident Evil films have been mainstream hits too, with the latest film Resident Evil: The Final Chapter making a whopping $312 million worldwide, meaning it’s one of the highest-grossing video game films of all time. And the franchise has made more than $1 billion at the box office globally, which isn’t bad by video game movie standards no doubt.
So perhaps Resident Evil fans and industry pundits were taken aback by Paul W. Anderson’s comments suggesting The Final Chapter would indeed be the last Resident Evil movie, something strange taking into account what a money-making machine the franchise has proven to be over the years.
It appears, though, that this year’s Resident Evil film won’t be the last one, as Martin Moszkowicz told Variety recently. Moszkowicz is board chairman at Constantin Film, which is the German production company behind the Resident Evil films.
Although it remains to be seen whether Paul W. Anderson will be involved in any way in the Resident Evil reboot, or whether star Milla Jovovich would be returning to reprise her role of Alice. This seems unlikely though, as rebooting the series will almost certainly mean a fresh new start, with new performers and likely a new director at the helm.
And in an interview with comicbook.com, actress Milla Jovovich had some advice for those looking to reboot Resident Evil, warning that it would be unwise to “put the cart before the horse”.
She said the reason the Resident Evil films turned out to be such a success is that “the people involved really loved what they’re doing and really were fans of the game”, adding that the success of the Resident Evil reboot would depend on the producers finding “people that have that same passion for the property before you talk about reboots. I think if you get into this kind of genre, people are very sensitive to fakes”.
She also added that there are some real sci-fi, action and horror fans amongst the series’ followers, and that they would be able to “smell when something is done because people love it and when something is done just to monetize an opportunity”.
Nonetheless, it would still be a great thing if the upcoming Resident Evil films delivered as much thrills and action as the six we’ve seen so far when they hit theatres sometime in the future, as this is something which would no doubt be welcome by the franchise’s legion of fans worldwide.
Read more: Ranking the Resident Evil movies from best to worst
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Screen Gems)