Zach Cregger Reboots Resident Evil With Austin Abrams — SkimNews
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- Zach Cregger directed a complete reinvention of Sony's Resident Evil franchise, releasing September 18, 2026, rated R with a 90-minute runtime, discarding familiar characters while retaining core video game elements
- Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier delivering organs to Raccoon City on a snowy Colorado night, who becomes trapped in a viral outbreak that mutates humans into tentacled creatures
- Paul Walter Hauser plays Paul, a manic Umbrella Corporation operative who reveals the outbreak's truth to Bryan, alongside Kali Reis as driver Maxine
- Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten wrote the screenplay, with both identifying as original devotees of the Resident Evil video game
- Sony's franchise previously produced roughly 8 films — including Milla Jovovich's "Alice" series from 2002 through the 2016 "Final Chapter" — plus a 2021 Netflix series before this reboot
- The film deploys humor and propulsive pacing alongside its horror, with cinematographer Dariusz Wolski's camerawork singled out as dizzying and dazzling and the VFX/makeup teams earning praise
Why it matters: Sony's billion-dollar Resident Evil franchise gets a tonal reset from horror auteur Zach Cregger, with reviews split between Deadline's enthusiasm and IndieWire's concern that the dark-comedy swing goes "too goofy for its own good." A high-profile September release tests whether a franchise that visibly stalled after 8 films and a Netflix series can be recaptured by swapping straight horror for gonzo laughs.
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