James Wan Out as ‘Resident Evil’ Movie Producer

Movie producer and director James Wan said he’s no longer producing the next Resident Evil movie.

Known for his work in horror films including Saw and The Conjuring as well as his directing role in the new Aquaman movie, Wan and his production company called Atomic Monster Productions were previously said to be in charge of producing the new Resident Evil reboot. But during an interview with Bloody Disgusting, Wan said he’s no longer producing the film.

“I’m not doing that anymore,” Wan said. “That has been dropped.”

The news came during an interview with Wan for his new Aquaman movie, a film that’s scheduled to be out on December 21st. While talking about the production of the Resident Evil movie, Wan said that his name is sometimes attached to different products, but not all of them are “necessarily real.”

“They announce that I’m attached to a lot of stuff and a lot of them are not necessarily real,” Wan said. “It’s kind of annoying when things come and go, or things never came in the first place. I hate it when my projects get announced. It makes it seem like I’m attached to a lot of things when in fact I’m not necessarily doing so many things. A lot of my stuff just get announced and I don’t want them to be announced but people love to announce them.”

By saying “They,” he appears to be referring to journalists where he said in a later comment that “It’s the journalists that want to announce stuff.”

Wan was one of several people said to be associated with the film’s various roles with both the screenwriter and director position already being filled as well. Johannes Roberts was recently announced to be the director of the new Resident Evil movie, his past works including 47 Meters Down, and Greg Russo would be taking on the role of screenwriter. Those two are said to still be involved with the movie, though Wan was also thought to be the producer until recently.

Whatever the movie’s team has planned for the reboot, it’s known that it’ll be inspired by Resident Evil 7, the newest game in the franchise that brought the series back to its horror roots. Russo commented on the inspirations for the movie and said “Resident Evil 7 was a bit of a touchstone” for his draft and even mentioned Wan’s creative style in his comment that was shared in November. A trailer for that game can be seen above to see what kind of style the movie reboot is said to be channeling.

A release date for the Resident Evil reboot has not yet been revealed.