Paul W.S. Anderson Will Write Resident Evil 6 Soon, And A Fan Favorite Returns
With all the unnecessary remakes and reboots out there it would be a reprehensible act to wish another one into existence, but I so want Sony to turn their Resident Evil franchise into something resembling the survival horror video games it was originally based on. But the studio is perfectly happy dumping money into Paul W.S. Anderson’s bank account to keep writing endless action sequences where Milla Jovovich flip-kicking and shooting things. Anderson will soon begin work on the screenplay for the not-yet-officially-titled Resident Evil 6, which will probably make a ton of money at the box office next year and justify, at least to studio executives, 2017’s inevitable Resident Evil 7: Acetaminophen. Don’t be surprised if they set this one in the middle of Pompeii, to reuse some of the sets from the director’s recent winter flop.
Anderson himself gave the Resident Evil 6 update while speaking at the Beijing International Film Festival. When the subject of his most successful films came up, he said he would be going home the next day to start writing. (Some websites have misquoted Anderson as saying “start Rising Resident Evil” rather than “writing Resident Evil.”) He doesn’t get into where the plot or story will go, but does say that Li Bingbing will reprise her role as the ass-kicking Ada Wong.
Look out! Anderson will definitely make Resident Evil 6 as 3D as he can get it. (I bet the story will appear to pop right off the screen, as if it were never there at all.) In fact, much of what Anderson had to say was in favor of 3D and he championed China for sticking with the format, while lowly American and U.K. swine have taken it for granted. No doubt due to trashy movies that use it to milk moviegoers pockets, right? Anderson also said part of his time in Beijing would be meeting with local talent, as he plans to film a project there once he’s finished with Resident Evil 6. Chinese Event Horizon please?
You can watch the BIFF interview here, and if your mind drifts to dark places as mine does, you’ll notice that he says “…3D is still alive and well here,” just as the news ticker is talking about the lives lost on a ferry accident. This guy, right?
Even if Anderson wrote the movie and shot it immediately, Resident Evil 6 still won’t be complete in time for the September release date that Sony prematurely announced a little over a year ago. Expect to see this one settle into a late summer or fall slot in 2015, after everybody is all Marvel’d out and in need of seeing Jovovich look confused by her surroundings.
In the meantime, though, you will be able to see Li take on another blockbuster sci-fi franchise from a polarizing director, as she stars opposite Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction in June. But will those fights be more interesting than these?
