There was barely time after the credits had rolled on the final Resident Evil movie to star Milla Jojovich that a reboot set in motion. Last year we learned Aquaman and Saw director James Wan would be involved in relaunching the adaptation of the Capcom video games, and now we know it has a director in 47 Meters Down‘s Johannes Roberts.
Roberts will direct Constantin Film’s reboot of Resident Evil, which originally centered on a zombie outbreak caused by the evil Umbrella Corporation. Paul W.S. Anderson’s movies greatly expanded on that core premise, but it was to tremendous and long-running success. The franchise ended with 2016’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, which earned over $300M worldwide. The franchise as a whole ran for six movies and over $1.2B earned. It’s easy to see why they wanted a reboot so quickly.
The addition of Roberts isn’t exactly exciting, though. He’s a solid filmmaker and he did some good work on the shark flick 47 Meters Down. He also directed the sequel Strangers: Prey at Night, and has 47 Meters Down: The Next Chapter opening next year. Chances are he’ll blend right into these movies without leaving a recognizable fingerprint, which is kinda sad. If they’re going to bring Resident Evil back I’d like to see them go in a vastly different direction with an especially stylish filmmaker, perhaps someone unfamiliar to the genre.
There’s also no mention of Wan in Variety‘s story, so who knows if he’s still involved. I assume we’ll find out soon.
