Jensen Ackles was linked to the role of Leon Kennedy in Milla Jovovich’s Resident Evil movies a few times, but here’s why this perfect casting never worked out. In adapting the original Resident Evil game, writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson took the unusual step of basically ignoring the source material in favor of creating an original story that borrowed plot elements and monsters from the series. He patterned the basic storyline after Alice In Wonderland, with Milla Jovovich’s Alice leading a group of survivors through an underground lab infested with zombies and other threats.
The 2002 movie didn’t receive good reviews, but it was a solid success, and later Resident Evil movies would pull further and further away from the video games. This upset longtime followers of the games who longed for a more accurate, horror-focused entry, but the huge success of the Jovovich-fronted films overseas made that switch unlikely. The Alice saga came to a close with 2017’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, which (for now, at least) completed the character’s journey.
Devotees of Resident Evil weren’t particularly happy with how the movies depicted characters from the games either. Key heroes like Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine or Claire Redfield were often treated as mere supporting players to Alice and had little in common with their video game counterparts. Leon Kennedy is one of the franchise’s most famous protagonists, and finally appeared in the fifth entry Resident Evil: Retribution – which also brought back Michelle Rodriguez’s Rain – in 2012. Johann Urb played the part, but Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles was up for Leon, not once, not twice, but three times throughout the franchise.
It’s easy to see why Resident Evil wanted Jensen Ackles as Leon. The fourth game turned the character from a rookie into a charming action hero who was always ready with a quip, which isn’t too far from Supernatural’s Dean Winchester. The only question mark is would Ackles have been able to pull off Leon’s trademark curtain of hair look, which may have been an issue. Ackles was first linked to an early version of Resident Evil: Extinction, the third movie. It appears more game characters like Chris Redfield or Cindy Lennox were set to appear in this sequel, though none of them ultimately turned up.
Jensen Ackles – who directed several Supernatural episodes – was again connected to Leon Kennedy for Resident Evil: Afterlife, according to a 2006Dark Horizons (via Rotten Tomatoes) report, and he was linked to it in the years leading up to the movie’s release. Ackles himself would squash that during a Van Con ’09 appearance (via YouTube), claiming he hadn’t been approached, though Leon didn’t turn up in that entry either. When it came time for Leon’s debut in Resident Evil: Retribution, Jensen Ackles was apparently the first choice. Jovovich herself would clear up those reports, stating Ackles was far too busy filming Supernatural to appear in the Resident Evil sequel. It’s a shame, though Leon’s given charmless appearance in Retribution – including “heroically” suggesting the survivors leave behind a child to die – the movie may not have been the best fit for the actor’s talents.
