Writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson received his customary critical thrashing on last year’s 3D Resident Evil: Retribution (read our review, for example). Nonetheless, the fifth video game movie installment, featuring Anderson’s wife Milla Jovovich as Alice, managed to gross $222 million in theaters around the globe.
Retribution is the most expensive entry to date (costing $65 million) and was less popular domestically than the previous three Resident Evil installments; it even ranks below the first movie, when adjusted for inflation. Hence, although Resident Evil 6 (subtitle TBD) was a foregone conclusion before Retribution even opened in theaters, restless audience signals indicate that it may be time to wrap things up. Fortunately, that’s been the plan for a while now.
Anderson previously told STYD that Resident Evil: Afterlife was meant to serve as the beginning of a new trilogy, which concludes with the sixth movie. Jovovich later confirmed as much at the 2012 Comic-Con, saying her husband “really [wants] to bring this to a closure” with the sixth installment. She also alluded to the strong possibility, nay inevitability, that more Resident Evil movies are coming once she and Anderson finish their run on the franchise – be it with a series reboot or partial start-over (a la Transformers 4).
Sony/Screen Gems has set Resident Evil 6 to hit U.S. theaters on September 12th, 2014, in keeping with the release pattern for the previous four installments (after Resident Evil opened in March 2002). The post-Summer Blockbuster Season slot has proven a successful launch pad so far, giving the studio little reason to deviate course at this point; not to mention, it currently has no competition in that month, with the exception of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Popeye opening two weeks later.
It’s all-but-official that Anderson is writing and directing Resident Evil 6, seeing how he wrote all five previous movies (and directed the first, fourth and fifth). He’ll presumably begin principal photography with Jovivich this Fall, shooting the film in 3D – like the last two movies – and using an in-your-face 3D style once again, since it’s part of the entertainment appeal for his take on the zombie action/horror property.
Retribution concluded on a cliffhanger setting up the sixth installment, which you can talk about in greater detail over at the Resident Evil: Retribution Spoilers Discussion thread. Meanwhile, feel free to leave a comment below about what you’re hoping to see in the next movie – or, if you prefer, where you would like to see the franchise go, once Anderson and Jovovich move on to other projects.
——
Resident Evil 6 (not the official title) opens in theaters on September 12th, 2014.
–
