The trailer for the newest Resident Evil film dropped Thursday morning, and fans are already cautiously optimistic. The reason: director Zach Cregger, the visionary behind Barbarian and last year’s Oscar-winning Weapons, has just shown the world his take on Raccoon City. And it looks genuinely terrifying.
But we’ve been here before. Seven times, to be exact. Seven Resident Evil films since 2002, each one promising to do justice to one of gaming’s greatest horror franchises, and each one falling short. So here’s the case for why this time might actually be different.
What We Know About the Film
The new Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams, known for Euphoria and Weapons), a medical courier who finds himself trapped in Raccoon City on its worst night. He’s not a soldier or a trained operative, just a guy with a delivery who suddenly has to figure out how to survive. None of the iconic characters from the games are set to appear, meaning no Leon Kennedy or Jill Valentine. Cregger is aiming to tell a completely original story inspired by the events of RE2 and RE3, filmed in Prague and set for release September 18, 2026.
Cregger is Hollywood’s hottest horror director right now. Weapons grossed over $270 million on a $38 million budget and took home an Oscar. More importantly, he’s a lifelong Resident Evil fan who co-wrote the screenplay himself, citing the games’ resource conservation mechanics and survival tension as core creative influences. His stated goal is to capture “the core feeling” of playing the games. When a director talks about a video game adaptation in terms of feel rather than plot, that’s usually a good sign.
“I wanted to construct a story that could live in the world of Resident Evil and kind of be on the periphery of the events of Resident Evil 2, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel, that really honors the vibe and the pacing you get when you play the games,” Cregger said to Polygon.
The supporting cast is quietly stacked: Paul Walter Hauser (The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Black Bird, I, Tonya), Zach Cherry (Severance, Silicon Valley), and Kali Reis (True Detective Season 4) round out the principal players. No one here is a traditional Hollywood action star, which feels entirely intentional.
Why History Demands Caution
Every previous adaptation failed for the same reason: prioritizing action spectacle over the actual thing that makes Resident Evil great. The slow-burn dread of being alone, underpowered, and almost out of options. The Milla Jovovich era drifted further from the games with every sequel. Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) tried to go back to the source and flopped. The Netflix series was canceled after one season.
The Verdict
The “every man protagonist” approach is the single most encouraging creative decision in this film. Bryan is not a superhero. He’s a courier. This mirrors exactly what made the Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019) so devastating: Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield weren’t hardened veterans, they were rookies dropped into hell. The best moments in RE games are when you feel completely overwhelmed, and an ordinary person trapped in Raccoon City achieves that naturally.
There’s also something significant about PlayStation Productions’ involvement as a producer. Sony’s gaming arm now has a template for what a great video game adaptation looks like: The Last of Us on HBO. Zach Cregger is the right director. Austin Abrams is an intriguing lead. The trailer is terrifying in exactly the right ways. The decision to tell a ground-level, every man story set during the Raccoon City outbreak is the smartest creative choice any Resident Evil film has ever made.
Resident Evil hits theaters September 18, 2026. The trailer is out now.
Resident Evil
- Release Date
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September 18, 2026
- Director
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Zach Cregger
- Writers
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Shay Hatten, Zach Cregger
- Producers
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Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, Miri Yoon, Robert Kulzer, Roy Lee
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