This has been on my mind for the past few weeks. A new Resident Evil movie is due for release on Nov 24th, and is being helmed as a total reboot for the franchise. Moving away from the Paul WS Anderson movies, “Welcome To Raccoon City” is alleged to be a faithful adaptation of the first two Resident Evil games.
This, for me at least, sounds great. The director Johannes Roberts has gushed in several interviews about being a huge fan of the games, and with this movie he apparently wants to get back to the survival-horror theme that made the games so successful.
That means none of this fucking nonsense.
The kink in all this comes with the marketing of this new movie. It’s set to release in 55 days, but apart from four production stills and a half-dozen behind the scenes shots of locations, there has no been no publicity or real push for this movie. No promos from the cast, no official posters or leaked concept art. No teasers or trailers. Nothing.
Everybody on Twitter is freaking out, saying Sony has fucked it up and are trying to shelve the picture quietly. People are already calling it a foregone failure. RE fans are shaking their heads because certain characters don’t look exactly as they did in the games. The general consensus is that “Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City” is set to blow like a $5 whore.
And my gut tells me it’s going to be the next “Dredd”; an earnestly-made movie that just failed to make bank.
The money now lies in putting out a higher quantity of smaller movies that don’t necessitate a whopping marketing budget. Given how MGM had to sit on Bond for over a year, it’s safe to say that smaller movies equate to less risk.
I think “Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City” is a prototype for productions going forward. It’s a $40 million Canadian production based off a well-established IP. And after all my blustering it still might suck. But don’t be surprised if this middle-of-the-road approach to movies becomes the norm for the near to foreseeable future.
There’s gonna be way less Avengers Endgame’s to salvate on.
