Resident Evil (2026 film)

Development

Johannes Roberts, the director of the previous film in the Resident Evil film series, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), expressed interest in directing a sequel.^[13] In April 2023, Raccoon HG Productions, which financed Welcome to Raccoon City, received a grant of CA$2 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation for a film titled Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. Greater Sudbury was picked as the principal location.^[14][15]

In January 2025, it was announced Cregger would co-write and direct a Resident Evil film reboot. The rights holder, Constantin Film, co-financed and produced, alongside PlayStation Productions and Vertigo Entertainment. A bidding war between four major studios ensued for the distribution rights, including Warner Bros. Pictures and Netflix.^[9] In March 2025, it was revealed that Sony Pictures, which had co-produced the previous live-action films under their Screen Gems division, won the bidding war, and would have Columbia Pictures overseeing the production.^{[a][10][16][17]}

Cregger chose not to feature any characters from the games, saying: "I'm not going to tell Leon's story, because Leon's story is told in the games. [Fans] already have that."^[18] He said it would not resemble Evil Dead II (1987) rather than his previous films Barbarian (2022) and Weapons (2025), and that it was a story he wanted to write whether he could use the Resident Evil IP or not. Cregger is a Resident Evil fan and described the film as a "love letter to the games".^[19] Cregger had not seen any of the previous Resident Evil films, and said his film would be more closely based on the games, particularly Resident Evil 2 (1998), Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999), and Resident Evil 4 (2005).^[20] The story takes place concurrently with the events of the Raccoon City outbreak in Resident Evil 2, in an alternative timeline set in a contemporary period.^[21]

Cregger and the co-writer, Shay Hatten, decided that Resident Evil was about "the player experience, which is you're one person guiding a character. You're up against it. They tried to create a story that could translate "trying to stumble through navigating a crazy situation" in the journey of its protagonist. The overall plot resembles a playthrough in which the character begins with one gun, gains confidence and items to help the fight, and by the time things get worse in the third act was "doing it adeptly". Bryan served as the audience surrogate, being someone "who's over his head, realizes what the situation is, and just is doing his best to scramble his way out of it", not being too competent in his actions and only managing to go through as "his survival instinct and desire to get home and see his girlfriend overcomes his natural fear". New characters would rarely appear and soon leave the story so as to keep the focus on Bryan's isolation and "the pure nightmare that he's in". The backstory of having a pregnant girlfriend and facing the fear of parenthood was not meant to be prominent, but Cregger and Hatten realized many of the situations they had written into Bryan's journey "speak to his psychological unreadiness to be a father and are reflecting his own situation back to him". The writing sessions had them doing a FaceTime call where each would write a scene simultaneously and then trade what they had finished, which Hatten described as "two hour spurts of concentrated energy" that helped them imbue the script with a fun tone, that like Cregger he compared to Sam Raimi.^[22]

Cregger said, "I wanted to construct a story that could live in the world of Resident Evil and be maybe on the periphery of the events of Resident Evil 2, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell another story that could be happening in parallel to that that really honors the vibe and the pacing that you get when you play the games."^[23] In a September 2026 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Cregger stated that he cut most of the jokes after test audiences found it "too funny".^[24]

Casting

In March 2025, Austin Abrams was in talks to star, after having played a role in Cregger's previous film, Weapons.^[2] This was confirmed in July.^[25] Mikey Madison was briefly in negotiations to star, but nothing ever came to fruition.^[26][27] In September, Paul Walter Hauser joined the cast.^[28] In October, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Johnno Wilson were announced to have also joined the cast, with Cherry as a scientist and Reis as an ex-military character that was originally written for a male actor.^[29]

Filming

Principal photography began in Prague on October 10, 2025, with Dariusz Wolski serving as cinematographer.^{[29][30][2][31]} Filming wrapped on January 22, 2026.^[32] The film was in the editing process by February 2026.^[33]

Music

The soundtrack was composed by Ryan and Hays Holladay, who previously co-scored Weapons with Cregger.^[34] The soundtrack album was released by Milan Records on September 18, 2026, the day of the film's release.^[35]

Box office

As of October 16, 2026^[update], Resident Evil has grossed $145 million in the United States and Canada, and $183 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $328 million.^[7][8]

In the United States and Canada, Resident Evil made $8.8 million in Thursday previews,^[40] and earned $60 million there on its opening weekend^[41] along with $48.3 million from other territories, generating a total of $108.3 million debut at the global box office.^[42] It set the opening records for both the franchise (surpassing Resident Evil: Retribution) and Cregger's career (surpassing Weapons).^[43] It fell 61% in its second weekend to $23.3 million, finishing second.^[44] In its third weekend, it made $8.3 million.^[45]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 299 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Packing unforgettable scares into a sleek runtime while Austin Abrams' crack comedic timing provides crucial levity, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil is a propulsive tribute to the pleasure and terror of playing a truly spooky video game."^[46] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned it a score of 79 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[47] It is both the best-reviewed film in the franchise and the highest-rated film based on a video game on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, surpassing Exit 8.^[48][49] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the highest grade ever received for a Resident Evil film.^[41]

William Bibbiani of TheWrap praised Resident Evil as both an effective horror film and a video game adaptation, describing it as an "explosive horror experience" that captures the feeling of playing the games without adapting one of their stories. Bibbiani highlighted Austin Abrams' performance as Bryan, the survival-horror structure, and Cregger's combination of frightening and comedic elements, ultimately calling it Cregger's best film to date.^[50] Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent praised the approach to video game adaptation, describing it as a "funny, delirious" reboot that effectively recreated the experience of playing a Resident Evil game. Loughrey praised Cregger's handling of the survival-horror mechanics, the balance of horror and comedy, and Abrams' performance, while noting that it remained accessible to viewers unfamiliar with the games.^[51]

Jesse Hassenger of The Guardian praised Abrams' portrayal of Bryan, calling his performance "a particularly fresh point-of-view character for a zombie/monster movie" while praising the comedic elements and the character of Bryan as a whole.^[52] Donald Clarke of The Irish Times described Resident Evil as "hilarious, fast-moving, self-aware action romp", praising its gore, humor, and references to video game cliches. He called it "smallish in scale" and mentioned it there were fewer story elements from the games than in the other films.^[53]

Jocelyn Noveck of the Associated Press praised Cregger's use of humor and gore and described Abrams as an appealing and relatable protagonist, while also highlighting the varied environments and jump scares. However, Noveck felt that the increasingly elaborate action became tiring toward the end.^[54] Phil de Semlyen of Time Out gave Resident Evil three out of five, praising Abrams' performance and the visual style, creature design, and faithfulness to the gameplay experience, but criticized its relatively slow pace and argued that it was more "goofy and good-looking" than frightening. He also felt that the plot was thin outside of its survival-horror set pieces.^[55]