When Barbarian, Zach Cregger’s debut film as a solo writer-director, came out in 2022, it was a big success, creating a buzz among horror connoisseurs, garnering good reviews, and grossing $46m. Then his second film, Weapons, came out in 2025 and did even better. Mounting industry buzz around the project crystallised into a fierce bidding war; Jordan Peele was reportedly desperate to produce and, incensed by his failure to secure the rights, allegedly fired his managers.
The rumours went viral, resulting in a wave of incredible PR that saw the film wildly outperform box office expectations and win an Academy Award (for Amy Madigan’s blunt-fringed, bonsai-pruning best supporting actress turn as instantly classic villain Aunt Gladys). Even if Cregger had not had a box-office smash that crossed over into awards contention, there would still be an atmosphere of hushed expectation around his next move. Both Barbarian and Weapons addressed hot-button issues – sexual assault and school shootings, respectively – while resisting easy interpretation.
Both, too, started out seemingly heading in one narrative direction, before thrillingly careening off elsewhere. Thus, with just two features, Cregger had established a reputation for totally terrifying, utterly unpredictable and – most importantly – genuinely original movies. Yet the real shocker from this nascent horror auteur is still to come.
For his third film, Cregger has taken inspiration from existing intellectual property – or IP, those two little letters bound to strike fear into the heart of even the most stoic cineaste. Zach Cregger has made a Resident Evil movie. He is talking to me via video call, from a warmly furnished but ominously low-lit room, wearing a crumpled navy T-shirt, and sounding much less defensive than his words might suggest.
The point is, it’s an original movie, even though it is Resident Evil.” He sighs. It was conceived to be a Resident Evil story. And when you watch the movie, you’ll know that’s the case, because it’s undeniable.” But what is “a Resident Evil story”?
For those who are unfamiliar, the franchise began as a Japanese survival horror game released for PlayStation in 1996. It was then adapted into a live-action film series – Cregger’s film will be the eighth instalment – beginning in 2002, with the Paul WS Anderson-directed Resident Evil, starring model turned actor Milla Jovovich as a woman battling a zombie contagion let loose on Raccoon City by the shadowy Umbrella Corporation. The film series, like the game, has been hugely profitable – that’s why they keep making ’em – and could at one point boast (at nearly $1.2bn and counting) of being the all-time highest-grossing horror film series, until being overtaken by the Conjuring Universe and the Alien series.
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