Zach Cregger has been flanked on all sides by the Resident Evil fandom since unveiling his movie to the world. You would think that the director behind Weapons and Barbarians, with a clear passion for the franchise, deciding to channel that adoration into a feature film, would be something to celebrate. Instead, fans threw up arms because the movie didn't feature Leon, took place in the modern day, and was snowy. A narrative quickly took hold that this was a zombie movie with the Resident Evil brand slapped on top, and Cregger quickly found himself on an apology tour to a fanbase who could never be satiated.
I won't go on a tirade about how silly those arguments were (the movie is Resident Evil down to the disappointing third act), or that Cregger shouldn't have had to slowly siphon his soul over the course of a press tour for fans who, judging by social media, haven't played much of the games anyway. But he made a pretty solid point in a new interview with the BBC: even if he did adapt the games, he would've been facing the same backlash.
"If I had delivered a faithful retelling of one of the stories in the games, I feel like those people would probably be upset with me for that too," Cregger said. "Because I would have messed it up somehow, inevitably. So all I can do is just tell the story that I think is going to be the very best story. If somebody's going to have a problem that it doesn't do exactly what they had in their mind of what a Resident Evil movie is, I can't say anything to that."
I've always thought that movie adaptations of games, 1:1, were silly. Games are already a visual 'moving picture'. It's like taking The Office US and turning it into a movie with an all-new cast, cramming eight seasons worth of television into 90 minutes. It will always feel rushed and half-done, and pale in comparison to the original. A movie set in the game universe, or telling an original story with the games as a foundation, makes far more sense. Evidently, considering that Cregger's Resident Evil is the highest-rated video game movie of all-time. And lest we forget the critically-acclaimed Fallout show that did similar.
Cregger didn't adapt the Resident Evil games, but we've already seen that thanks to the slated and short-lived Welcome to Raccoon City, and the maligned 2022 Netflix series. Not to mention when Paul W. S. Anderson shoved his OC into a vague approximation of the game world, taking center stage from the video game characters—arguably worse than not featuring them at all. Cregger didn't do that, so the fact he had to spend a year apologizing for the highest-rated video game movie of all-time, that channeled the feeling of playing the games rather than re-telling a story we have already experienced, is bizarre. Especially when those same stories have been remade already.
Plus, if the past is anything to go by, then yes, an adaptation probably would've riled up fans anyway. Thank Wesker he didn't do that.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/zach-cregger-resident-evil-fans-would-be-upset-if-the-movie-was-faithful/
