Zach Cregger Gets Full Creative Control on the Resident Evil Movie
Barbarian and Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger is steering the new Resident Evil movie — with carte blanche to make it entirely his own.
Zach Cregger is taking a swing at Resident Evil for Sony, and he is not tiptoeing in. The Barbarian and Weapons filmmaker has a theatrically dated rollout on the books for September 18, 2026, and the movie is already in post. The short version: this is a new story set in the world of the games, built to honor the lore without trotting out the usual playable heroes.
What this version is
Cregger co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten (Army of the Dead), and the setup leans back into the series’ pure-horror roots. The main character is Bryan, a mellow organ courier on a late-night run to Raccoon City General Hospital. On a snowy mountain road, he hits a mysterious woman. She lives, but something is off. Trying to do the right thing drops him into a full-on outbreak — think grotesque, tentacle-forward mutations and other engineered nightmares — and the night only gets meaner from there.
The cast
- Austin Abrams (fresh off Cregger’s Weapons) leads as Bryan
- Paul Walter Hauser (Cobra Kai)
- Zach Cherry (Severance) as a hospital scientist
- Johnno Wilson (I Love That for You)
- Kali Reis as an ex-military character that was originally written for a man
Cregger’s approach (and how wild he wants to get)
Cregger is a dyed-in-the-wool Resident Evil fan who says he has never watched the previous movies, and he’s not adapting game protagonists because, in his view, those arcs already live best in game form. He’s aiming for something fast, nasty, and playful behind the camera.
"It’s gonna be not at all like Barbarian and Weapons. It’s going to be a rock 'em, sock 'em… it’s for me to play. And turn my brain off and just make an… Evil Dead II… get crazy with the camera. … It’s a weird, fun, wild story. This movie follows a person from point A to point B. It’s like a real time journey, where you just go deeper and deeper into the depths of Hell."
He’s also promised the movie will be obedient to the games’ lore, even if it doesn’t star the usual suspects.
Production status and where it’s set
Filming kicked off a couple months back, with Prague dressed up as Raccoon City. The production has now moved into post, which tracks with that fall 2026 date.
Who’s backing it (and how much leash he has)
Constantin Film is producing and co-financing, with Robert Kulzer for Constantin, Roy Lee and Miri Yoon for Vertigo Entertainment, and PlayStation Productions also on board. Nicole Brown is overseeing for Sony’s Columbia Pictures.
Constantin Film CEO Oliver Berben says the mandate here is wide open — a clean-table reset that lets Cregger bend the IP to his vibe.
"It is a complete new set-up, far away from everything that is connected to Resident Evil, only because Zach Cregger has his own style."
"He was given the carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to do with that IP... now we are creating something new, not just a new story idea, but to allow a new generation to take the IP into their own hands and form something different."
Bottom line
If you want Leon, Claire, or Jill front and center, this isn’t that. If you want a snowbound, down-the-rabbit-hole nightmare in Raccoon City that respects the rulebook while scribbling in the margins, that’s exactly what Cregger says he’s cooking.