Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City Director Wants To Adapt RE 4 Next

Director and writer of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, Johannes Roberts, recently discussed the series’ later games, suggesting he’d like to adapt Resident Evil 4 next. The latest adaptation of Capcom’s survival horror franchise is a reboot following the conclusion of Paul W.S Anderson’s previous film series. The film will focus on the early entries in the game series, primarily Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is focused on the events first 2 games of the series, which center on the Arklay Mountain and Raccoon City T-Virus outbreaks. The games laid the groundwork for future installments through lore and characters, such as Leon S Kennedy, who would grow from a rookie RPD cop, to a government agent tasked with rescuing the President’s daughter in 2005’s Resident Evil 4. Portrayed by Avan Jogia in the upcoming film, Roberts has discussed how hard they worked to cast the survivor, and now the director has expressed interest in exploring Leon’s later adventures.

Speaking to SFX magazine (as reported via CBR), Roberts discussed his approach to the Resident Evil franchise, as well as his hopes for future films should Welcome to Raccoon City be successful. Roberts states that while he pulled aspects and small details from Resident Evil 4, there were characters and events that he’d like to adapt as part of a possible sequel. Roberts also discussed more recent entries such as 2017’s Resident Evil 7 and 2021’s Resident Evil Village, and how they further expanded the series beyond its signature undead zombie apocalypse into more occult, gothic-inspired horror. He stated that these later games had been mentioned in conversations, and expressed how he hoped his reboot would be the start of a new saga. Check out Roberts’ full response below:

“I could very much see that becoming part of the next installment. There’s a lot of interesting lore and tiny details that we have brought into this movie, but would be amazing to expand on. There are characters that we didn’t use in this game that we would love to expand upon in the next movie. There’s also a different side of Resident Evil with Village and Resident Evil 7, where it’s a much darker, more horrific world.”

Though based upon the first two installments of the video game series, a wider world has already been teased in trailers. The first teaser includes a nod to the Ashford Twins, Alfred and Alexia, who were antagonists featured in the 2000 Sega Dreamcast spin-off, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, which followed Claire Redfield (portrayed by Kaya Scodelario in the film) following the Raccoon City outbreak. The film also borrows elements from the remakes of the first two games, taking visual inspiration from 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake, and adapting the terrifying Lisa Trevor (Marina Mazepa), a girl experimented on by the Umbrella Corporation who featured as a boss in the 2002 remake to the original game.

With a wide and expansive mythology, a sequel to Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City has plenty of source material to pull inspiration from. An adaptation of Resident Evil 4 would be an ideal way to continue Leon’s story, with the game originally evolving the character into a more composed and wiser hero while expanding the world beyond zombie outbreaks. However, the film also features characters such as Chris Redfield (Played by Robbie Amell), who are absent from Leon’s story in the fourth entry and have their own far-removed adventures, meaning that in order to include the whole cast, deviations from the source material would be required. However, with Roberts showing a good understanding of the franchise while pulling from other installments to build his film’s world, it is clear that care has been placed into the director’s approach to Capcom’s iconic horror. Audiences will be able to see this for themselves when Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City releases on November 24.

Source: CBR

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