Resident Evil is a survival horror franchise known by gamers the world over. In 2002, we got the first of several movies based Capcom’s zombie horror franchise. The Resident Evil films we know, and for some reason keep watching, are the work of Paul W.S. Anderson. The first movie in the franchise was the first entry in the sliding scale of quality that the series represents – but did you know that we almost had a very different Resident Evil cinematic experience?
George Romero, the man behind Night of The Living Dead, Dawn of The Dead, and other Movies of The Dead, was originally set to write and direct the Resident Evil series’ first steps in to the realm of film. In 1996, the first game in the series was released and became massively successful and popular with gamers across the world. This caught the attention of Hollywood, who saw potential in the horror franchise. In 1998 (the same year Resident Evil 2 released) George Romero became attached to the project after directing a commercial that aired in the US for Resident Evil 2.
Romero was a good fit for the series, as he is considered the master of the zombie movie genre, and is responsible for many modern day zombie media tropes. After his attachment to the project, things went quiet however.
“I’m hoping that it can just be dark and chilling like the game – good zombies, good makeup, good effects.” Romero stated in an interview with Gamespot in 1999.
“I’ve had the advantage, doing my zombie films, of not having to have them rated. I think for the US release it’s going to have to fall within an ‘R’ because it’s going to be an expensive film, and nobody’s going to take the chance of letting it go unrated.”
Things are looking good for the Resident Evil movie at this point. We have one of the greatest zombie movie directors working on one of the greatest zombie game franchises in gaming history. What could go wrong?
At E3 two weeks later, press asked Capcom for updates on the movie. Yoshiki Okamoto, a producer with Capcom, responded by saying that the movie was still in the scripting stage, as Romero was longer attached to Resident Evil.
“We know the movie is going to be out there someday. There is a scenario coming, but there’s no script yet.” he said, before commenting on Romero’s involvement directly. “His script wasn’t good, so Romero was fired.”
After this, details of George Romero’s script began to leak online. Paul W.S. Anderson eventually took over the movie, and Resident Evil released in 2002 after being completely re-written. But what was the original version like?
The story in Romero’s Resident Evil script followed the events of the first game quite closely. Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine would be the lead protagonists, as the S.T.A.R.S. team explored an eerie mansion. Many other parts of the first game are recognizable in this script, such as the T-Virus and the inclusion of the Tyrant B.O.W.
The script does seem to have an action element to it, as the script mentions other S.T.A.R.S members, including Albert Wesker and Barry Burton, and implies that the team are going in to the situation heavily armed. At least, initially.
Although the project is long dead (no pun intended), the entire script has since been posted online, and you can find it here. It’s a good read, and makes me retroactively existed for a movie that doesn’t exist. It’s by no means a perfect script, and is only the first draft, but the potential for what could have been is easy to see.
You can also check out Romero’s Resident Evil 2 trailer below.
As for the established Resident Evil cinematic series, the latest entry to the series – Resident Evil: The Final Chapter – is due out on January 27, 2017. Three days after the release of Resident Evil 7.
from Nerd Reactor
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