Before the Resident Evil franchise ended up in the hands of Paul W.S. Anderson, the filmmaker who was developing a cinematic adaptation of the zombie video game series was the one who first brought us the concept of flesh-eating zombies: Night of the Living Dead (and Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead) director George A. Romero. For decades, fans have been pondering what it would have been like if Romero had been able to bring his vision of Resident Evil to the screen – and that’s the subject of the upcoming documentary George A. Romero’s Resident Evil. The documentary is expected to be released sometime in 2024, and a trailer for it can be seen in the embed above.
Directed by Brandon Salisbury, George A. Romero’s Resident Evil is being produced by Key 13 Films in association with Point Five Films. During an interview with the Resident Evil Podcast, Salisbury revealed that he didn’t want George A. Romero’s Resident Evil to be your average “talking heads” documentary. So he had the idea to shoot interviews in an abandoned mansion that has been made up and lit to look like the mansion from the Resident Evil video game. He has also gotten permission from the game rights owners at Capcom and the film rights owners at Constantin Film to film some scenes from Romero’s script that were based on iconic scenes from the game (but it’s not clear if they were able to shoot those).
George A. Romero’s Resident Evil received some input from Romero’s personal assistant Jason Bareford. As the story goes, Romero had an assistant play through Resident Evil so he could watch the gameplay while writing the adaptation – and Bareford was that assistant. When the project was first announced, Bareford said the mission with this documentary was to set the record straight on what really went on behind the scenes when Romero’s version of Resident Evil was in the works. He was in the room when decisions were being made, and when Romero was informed that Constantin Film no longer intended to make the movie with him.
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