The Resident Evil movie from Barbarian and Weapons director Zach Cregger releases on September 18, and now he’s revealed a key detail about what people won’t experience in the movie. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Cregger shared what he learned from test screenings, and that was that an earlier version had too much humor.
People who saw Barbarian and Weapons know that those spooky movies had humor sprinkled in, and Cregger himself comes from a comedy background with his role in the sketch comedy group Whitest Kids ‘U Know. He and co-writer Shay Hatten apparently imbued a bit too much comedy in Resident Evil, so they dialed things back for the final version.
“I learned [from test screenings] that people really liked the movie, but they thought it was too funny. So over the course of my testing, I stripped out as much of the jokes as possible,” Cregger said. “I then found that not only did the audience enjoy the movie more, but I also liked the movie a lot more. A little bit of humor goes a long way in a horror movie, and there’s not a single joke I took out of this movie that I miss.”
Be that as it may, as a big fan of Cregger and his work in WKUK, I sure hope one day we get to see the Resident Evil: WKUK Cut, or at least learn more about these jokes that were left on the cutting room floor.
Also in the interview, Cregger discussed how he understands he cannot please everyone, especially a group as passionate as gamers. He previously said he felt like his press tour was more of an “apology tour” because he’s not delivering the movie some fans wanted. However, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Cregger said he is not interested in pleasing everyone; instead, his North Star is making the kind of Resident Evil movie he wants to make.
“If I tried to please everybody, I’d end up pleasing nobody. That much is obvious,” Cregger said. “I just have to be okay with people voicing their opinion. I’m a grown-up. When I took this on, I understood what I was walking into. So it would be weird for me to act surprised or bent out of shape that the thing that was obviously going to happen is now happening.”
He went on to say there are fans of the games who “specifically love the lore and the characters and the nitty-gritty details of the backstory.” But Cregger’s movie tells a different story, involving no characters from the games.
“I’m not putting any of the legacy characters into this movie. So if that is what you love about these games, then you’re going to feel a certain way about it. ‘Here comes yet another Hollywood movie, and they’re once again not doing Leon and all the characters I was hoping they were going to do,'” he said.
The Resident Evil movie releases on September 18, with screenings starting a night earlier. The film is expected to be a huge hit, potentially achieving the biggest opening weekend in franchise history.
Cregger has a number of other projects in the works, including his next movie, the sci-fi deep-space movie, The Flood. He’s also discussed a Weapons prequel about Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys character (for which she won an Oscar), though he will not direct it.
