After Barbarian and Weapons, Zach Cregger probably could have spent the next few years fielding offers from studios with a dusty horror franchise in the closet, just waiting to shake it off and send it back to the new horror movie schedule. But his upcoming Resident Evil movie was not some corporate assignment that landed on his desk. According to Cregger, he went after it himself, which already makes me more interested in what he is building. Now, to make matters more interesting, he is opening up about the hero of his 2026 movie release, and I totally understand why his adaptation cannot just be like the game.
In an interview with Empire, Cregger explained that he approached the rights holders with his own idea for a movie set inside the world of the games. The filmmaker described it as “a Zach Cregger movie that just happens to be a Resident Evil movie,” which, as a huge fan of his work and this video game, is exactly what I want to hear. But it was his description of the movie’s lead character, Bryan, played by Austin Abrams, that made the whole approach click:
The concept here is that we’re following an idiot. Not that he’s stupid, but he’s not your typical game character, with no combat skills whatsoever and completely inept at survival. Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this kind of sacred mission that’s going to take him into the heart of everything. It’s kind of like Frodo going into Mordor.
That is a funny, and honestly, unique take on the property. The Resident Evil games often begin with characters who are overwhelmed, but they are still generally capable people. Fan favorite Leon is a rookie cop in his first appearance, sure, but he is not helpless. Claire can handle herself. Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield and Ada Wong are all built for danger in different ways, as most of them are Special Forces. They may be low on ammo, but they are not wandering into the apocalypse with zero survival instincts.
Bryan sounds different. He is a medical courier, not a cop, soldier or professional assassin. That matters because a horror movie does not work the same way a game does. In the games, the player needs some level of control and competence. You need to learn the map, manage the inventory, solve puzzles and improve your odds. A movie can trap us with someone who has no idea what he is doing, making every choice feel like a catastrophe waiting to hatch.
That may be why Cregger’s version, which has been compared to Mad Max: Fury Road, cannot be exactly like the game. If he were adapting one of the mainline stories beat for beat, which we’ve already seen done several times at this point, fans would be waiting for recognizable rooms, familiar monsters and big franchise landmarks. By following a new character through that world, he can chase the feeling of Resident Evil without turning the movie into a museum tour.
Based on what he told the outlet, that feeling is very much the point. Cregger said the film is less a straightforward video game movie adaptation and instead borrows the games’ rhythm more than their specific playable heroes. He continued:
It feels like one gigantic sequence. Things pop off about five minutes in and it basically stays like that until the end. What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge. So again, I’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet.
That sounds like the smartest possible way to translate Resident Evil into a new movie. The games are built on escalation, and if Cregger can capture that run-from-one-disaster-to-the-next momentum, the movie could feel faithful even without centering on video game protagonists.
I also like that he is apparently moving away from the twist-heavy structure of Barbarian and Weapons. Those movies made their names by pulling the floor out from under the audience. Resident Evil, at least from this description, sounds more like a sprint through a burning maze. Things start going wrong almost immediately, and Bryan just has to keep stumbling forward.
Will that annoy some game purists? Probably. But the filmmaker sounds like he is making a movie as a fan, not as someone checking boxes from a Wiki page. If the goal is to put a totally unprepared everyman through the kind of escalating nightmare that makes the games so addictive, then I finally understand why this Resident Evil cannot just play the hits.
Resident Evil comes to theaters Sept. 18.
