Zach Cregger on Revamping ‘Resident Evil’ and Why He Doubts He’ll Ever Return to Comedy

After two original horror hits in Barbarian and Weapons, horror maestro Zach Cregger has now turned his focus to some very familiar IP: Resident Evil.

There have been seven films in the Resident Evil franchise over the last 25 years, with mixed success; Cregger, though, is out to start fresh, introducing a new story that is not based directly on the hit video games.

“I feel like I had a clear idea of what would be my favorite Resident Evil movie and I was lucky enough to have a studio that gave me the resources to make it,” the filmmaker told The Hollywood Reporter at the L.A. premiere on Tuesday. “I felt pretty confident. We’ll see, maybe I’m delusional but I don’t think so. I’ve seen the movie and I like it.”

Cregger’s update follows a medical courier (played by Austin Abrams) who is in the middle of making a delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital when a zombie outbreak sends him into a fight for survival. It does not feature any legacy characters from the games, as the director explained, “The idea that I had just didn’t need any of them and I felt like to bring them in would be to invite a lot of problems that I felt like would have been distracting from the central story.”

There has been some pushback online about his decision to scrap these game characters, but Cregger acknowledged, “I know that when you dive into an IP you’re going to get flack, a certain degree, from the fandom. It would be weird if I were shocked that that was happening. But I think that when the people who love these games the way I do see the movie, my hope is that they feel seen and they feel like this movie is paying homage to the games, because it is, it’s obvious.”

After an impressive horror run over the last five years, Cregger — who started his career in sketch comedy — also weighed in on if he’d ever return to the genre and make a comedy, saying “never say never” but at the same time, “I’m open to it but I doubt it. My creative tuning fork tends to resonate with darkness.”

Abrams reunites with Cregger for the film after the duo worked together on Weapons, as the actor recalled how after that shoot, Cregger “asked me if I wanted to do it and I was kind of shocked honestly. I thought maybe he just wanted notes on the script or something.” Abrams also expressed how he appreciates the original story approach that the filmmaker has taken with the adaptation, saying, “I dig that because it means Zach can be more creative and be more free with what he’s making while also keeping it very strongly in the feeling of the game,” adding, “I want him to put his fingerprints on it.”

With Whalefall — which follows a scuba diver being swallowed by a whale and fighting for his life to get out — Abrams is in a bit of a horror moment himself, though he teased “I’m not trying to punish myself” by taking these dark and violent roles. Up next, though, he muses a rom-com “sounds kind of nice. Something in the sun, something on a beach. Well not in the water” — referencing Whalefall — “but outside on the beach, looking at the water, on the sand.”