Unsurprisingly, Resident Evil Films Are Getting a Reboot

Despite the most recent film in the Resident Evil franchise being literally titled The Final Chapter, the long-running series is officially getting another installment. It’s unclear if this will be a full-on reboot, as no details on cast or timeline continuity have been released. The announcement comes after the surprising revelation that Resident Evil: The Final Chapter film managed to gross a whopping $312 million, including a staggering $160 million in China alone. That’s money no sane executive would leave on the table, so a reboot was always inevitable.

The initial hexalogy of films were guided under the direction and writing of Paul W. S. Anderson. Despite never directing a film with a Rotten Tomato score above 43 percent, Anderson continues to find work and would likely jump at the chance to continue the commercially successful series, given the mediocre reception of everything else he’s ever worked on.

By contrast, Milla Jovovich—who has starred in all six films to date—presumably would want to do something different with her life considering her successful turns in other films and her burgeoning music and fashion careers. Then again, she is married to Paul W. S. Anderson, so it doesn’t require too much imagination to see how she could be sucked back into the black hole that is videogame movie adaptations—slipping over the Event Horizon, if you will.

Resident Evil is far and away the highest-grossing film franchise based on a videogame. The actual videogame series received a soft reboot with the exceptional Resident Evil 7 earlier this year, and it seems the zombie-driven franchise ironically continues to show signs of life.