Austin Abrams stars in Constantin Film and Columbia Pictures ‘Resident Evil’, directed by Zach Cregger. Photo by: Courtesy of Sony Pictures. ©2026 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Arriving to theaters on September 17, 2026, ‘Resident Evil’ stars Austin Abrams and offers a unique take on the fan favorite video game franchise. The film is written and directed by Zach Cregger.
Release Date: Sep 18, 2026
Run Time: 1 hr 35 min
Budget: $80,000,000
Moviefone attended a special sneak peek of the film, watching the first eighteen minutes. After that, Zach Cregger took the stage to discuss the process of making it.
Related Article: Paul Walter Hauser Added to the Cast of Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’
1) Zach Cregger Wrote ‘Resident Evil’ Thinking He Would Not Be Directing It
Zach Cregger at a Presentation for ‘Resident Evil’ at CinemaCon 2026 for Sony Pictures at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on April 13, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by Stewart Cook/Sony Pictures via Getty Images.
When working on the script for ‘Resident Evil’ Zach Cregger had no idea he would be the one directing it, which he says was more freeing.
Zach Cregger: ‘Resident Evil’ has value as a brand. I was like, they’re not going to trust me with something like that. So, I was able to write it kind of like, who [cares]? I’m not making this movie. So. I’m just going to write my favorite ‘Resident Evil’ thing. [Stinks] to be the dude that has to figure out how to shoot all this stuff. I’m just going to write it and I don’t care. Which is the best attitude you can have when you’re writing is to not care. So, that let me just have fun.
2) Austin Abrams “Almost Died” On Set
Austin Abrams stars in Constantin Film and Columbia Pictures ‘Resident Evil’, directed by Zach Cregger. Photo by: Dušan Martinček.©2026 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Many of the effects were practical on ‘Resident Evil’ because Zach Cregger wanted things to look realistic. One particular take almost seriously injured star Austin Abrams.
Zach Cregger: There’s a scene in this movie, it’s in the trailer momentarily, but [Austin] is running down the street and there’s zombies on the roof of the buildings on either side and they’re all leaping at him. We had to basically design this thing where he’s just running and bodies are just falling and detonating all around him. I knew I didn’t want to do it with VFX because I feel like it would just look like VFX. So the way to do it is you get a bunch of cranes and you have all these body-sized blood bags and you rehearse how they’re going to fall and how fast he’s going to run and then you just shoot it. He’s running and they’re releasing these bags and they’re falling and hitting all around him and exploding. One triggered too early and it missed him by inches. It’s probably 150 pounds. It would have killed him if he had been one step to the right. He would have died.
3) ‘Resident Evil’ Will Not Have A Classic Zach Cregger Tonal Shift
Austin Abrams stars in Constantin Film and Columbia Pictures ‘Resident Evil’, directed by Zach Cregger. Photo by: Dušan Martinček.©2026 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Both Zach Cregger’s movies had a massive shift in tone partway through. He wanted to challenge himself in a new way for ‘Resident Evil’.
Zach Cregger: I didn’t want to be the weirdo who breaks story structure because I did that with ‘Barbarian‘, I did it with ‘Weapons‘, and I figured that it would be really a 180 for me to do something that is just locked in with one character from point A to point B, and just keep it simple. The challenge is, can I put my foot on the gas and not take my foot off the gas until the end of the movie? That to me is the challenge of this. I think I did. So it, by design, just does not stop.
4) One Of The Biggest Challenges On ‘Resident Evil’ Involved Filming With A Dog
Zach Cregger (director, ‘Resident Evil’) at CinemaCon 2025 for Sony Pictures at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on March 31, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by Stewart Cook/Sony Pictures via Getty Images.
Zach Cregger admits that one of the most difficult sequences in the movie to film involved a dog, stating working with animals is hard.
Zach Cregger: [In one scene Bryan] gets chased and attacked by a dog. I’m out in the middle of nowhere. It’s freezing cold. I am wrangling a psycho dog to try and do what I wanted to do. Working with animals is hard. This thing was terrifying. I was sick and it was just one of those things where you’re nocturnal for months making a movie that takes place at night. I just ran out of gas. I just remember thinking like, I would rather be anywhere in the world but here, in the freezing weather, trying to get this dog to do what I wanted to do.
5) Zach Cregger Is Not Trying To Redo The Video Game Stories
Austin Abrams stars in Constantin Film and Columbia Pictures ‘Resident Evil’, directed by Zach Cregger. Photo by: Dušan Martinček. ©2026 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
As a gamer himself, Zach Cregger knows that he cannot make the video game stories better, so this movie is simply another story that takes place in that world, during that time.
Zach Cregger: I have been such a giant fan of those games since two came out and I have played all of them. I love spending time in the worlds. I love the pacing of the games. It’s not survival action, it’s survival horror. You always feel like you have just enough to survive but probably not. That is so portable into a movie. I just wanted to make a movie that would celebrate everything I think make those games so special, but not cannibalize the stories that those games tell so well. Because I don’t think I can tell Leon’s story better than the games tell Leon’s story. That, to me, feels like a losing endeavour.
‘Resident Evil’ is scheduled to be released on September 18, 2026.
What is the plot of ‘Resident Evil’?
From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger comes a thrilling, and terrifying, reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise. In an all-new story, ‘Resident Evil’ follows Bryan, a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
Who is in the cast of ‘Resident Evil?
Zach Cregger at a Photo Call for ‘Resident Evil’ at CinemaCon 2026 for Sony Pictures at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on April 13, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by JC Olivera/Sony Pictures via Getty Images.