Director Johannes Roberts confirmed to IGN during SXSW that the name of the film reboot for Resident Evil will be officially titled Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.
It will harken back to the games’ roots by adapting the stories from the first two entries of the franchise. For longtime fans, that means moviegoers will follow Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield in a zombie-infested police station. Meanwhile, Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield have their own fair share of issues at a mansion that is crawling with the undead.
The cast ranges from stars in Marvel films to Game of Thrones with indies in between. The leads consist of Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ready Player One) as Jill Valentine, Kaya Scodelario (Crawl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), Robbie Amell (The Flash, The Babysitter) as Chris Redfield, and Avan Jogia (Shaft, Zombieland: Double Tap) as Leon Kennedy. Other classic characters will appear as they do in the games, like Ada Wong, who will be portrayed by Lily Gao (The Expanse, The Handmaid’s Tale), and Tom Hopper (The Umbrella Academy, Game of Thrones) as Albert Wesker.
Roberts will direct and write the reboot that will set itself from the Milla Jovovich that ran from 2002’s Resident Evil to 2016’s The Final Chapter. Roberts’ horror experience runs deep from 47 Meters Down to The Strangers: Prey at Night, so he is no amateur at blood, gore, and all things spooky.
Capcom has a lot in the works for both the big and small screen to expand the franchise outside of video games and with good reason as the films that Paul W.S. Anderson directed with Jovovich as the lead grossed over $1 billion worldwide across all six films. On top of Roberts’ take on the universe, two Netflix projects are in the works. One CG series called Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness will follow Claire and Leon. Also, a live-action movie that will follow Wesker’s daughters is brewing.
On the video game side of things, Resident Evil Village launches May 7 for PS4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and PC.
Welcome to Raccoon City will release in theaters on September 3.
What do you think of the Resident Evil film reboot name, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City? Let us know how welcoming you think it is with the cast and director in the comments.
