Milla Jovovich and the Resident Evil film franchise have enjoyed a long and mutually fruitful relationship, beginning with 2002’s first outing and concluding six films later with last year’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Presumably, after that last film wrapped, Jovovich sat back and put her feet up, happy that she’d said all that needed to be said about killer monster viruses, mutated freaks and sub-Matrix superpowers.
Well, production company Constantin Film disagrees, having figured that the Resident Evil cow can squeeze a little more milk from its rather bruised teats. And so they announced that a reboot of the series was currently in development from Aquaman director James Wan and writer Greg Russo, with a potential further six films to be released, albeit sans Jovovich – and she isn’t too happy about it.
Speaking to ComicBook.com, here’s what the actress had to say about the news:
They’ve announced a reboot? Okay, well good luck with that. I think a lot of people with these franchises kind of put the cart before the horse. There’s a danger to that. They’ve been wanting to reboot Resident Evil for a long time, and listen: I love the Resident Evil world. I think it’s a great property, I would do it if I was a producer. I think what made Resident Evil so special is that the people involved really loved what they’re doing and really were fans of the game.”
I would suggest that you find people that have that same passion for the property before you talk about reboots. I think if you get into this kind of genre, people are very sensitive to fakes. There’s some real fans in the sci-fi/action/horror world, and they’re not idiots. They can smell when something is done because people love it and when something is done just to monetize an opportunity.”
It’s nice that she cares so much about the artistic sanctity of the Resident Evil universe, but it seems a touch hypocritical to criticize producers for attempting to monetize an opportunity. Did she really believe she was making a series of insanely cheesy zombie action movies of questionable quality purely because they were stories that desperately needed to be told? I’ve also got to query that the people involved were fans of the game, as by this point, the movies have precisely bugger all to do with what’s going on the video game series right now.
Oh well. We’ll keep our ears to the ground for more news about the reboot, though we can’t say we’re terribly thrilled about it. Does the world really need twelve Resident Evil flicks in it?