In March 2002, Paul W.S. Anderson brought the top video game from the console monitor to the big screen with stunning success. With an inventive new story paired with the dangerous world of the walking Undead, the film set the stage for a new and even more terrifying battle.
“I always wanted to make a really scary movie,” says executive producer Bernd Eichinger of Constantin Film. Spotting Constantin staff playing Resident Evil in the office, he recognized the potential of a game that so vividly and terrifyingly captured the imaginations of so many. The Resident Evil® series is one of the most successful video game franchises in history with sales of more than 24 million units worldwide. This year alone, Capcom plans to release two new Resident Evil titles – Resident Evil Outbreak for the PlayStation 2™ in March and Resident Evil 4 for the Nintendo GameCube™ in the winter. “I knew then that if we could translate the unique quality of this game to the screen, we would have a winner.”
Constantin secured the rights from Capcom, a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment. “Constantin is an independent company,” explains Eichinger. “We’re able to make decisions quickly without a hundred executives in the consultation process. I think that independent spirit was very appealing to Capcom. Even more importantly, we took their concept very seriously and demonstrated our respect for the source material.”
RESIDENT EVIL: Apocalypse reunites the original production team of Constantin executive producer Robert Kulzer with Impact Pictures’ Jeremy Bolt as producer and Paul W.S. Anderson as both producer and screenwriter. Joining the team is veteran producer Don Carmody (Chicago, Gothika) who recently produced Constantin’s thriller, Wrong Turn.
Himself an avid Resident Evil gamer long before the first film went into development, producer and screenwriter Anderson relished the opportunity to infuse this installment with tangible elements of the game. “There is some striking imagery from the game that we have recreated for the big screen,” he describes. “That was part of the fun of this movie. Because it was more directly tied into characters, narrative and events from the video games, we could recreate certain images and scenes but put a twist on them as well so even if you’re a hardcore fan it will still surprise you.”
“We’ve tried to immerse the viewer in the world the same way the games do,” he continues. “In some ways it’s easier to turn Resident Evil into a movie because the games themselves are so heavily influenced by movies.”
As Anderson was shooting Alien vs Predator concurrent with the production schedule of RESIDENT EVIL: Apocalypse, the producing team passed the gauntlet to acclaimed second unit director Alexander Witt, who has contributed his extraordinary action and visual style to dozens of blockbusters, including Hannibal and Black Hawk Down.
“Alexander has an amazingly strong visual eye and has done some of the best action scenes in some of the top movies of the last ten years,” comments producer Bolt. “He has such a great wealth of filmmaking experience that it’s hard to consider this to be his debut as a director.”
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