Resident Evil Reboot Star Says it Will Make Game Fans Happy

The upcoming Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City will totally reboot the horror-franchise for the big screen, seemingly taking more of its cues from the long-running Capcom series unlike the previous film franchise. Though the Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich series was a huge hit for Sony Pictures across its six movies, it strayed quite far from what fans knew and loved about the games. One star of the new film says that gamers don't have to worry about that with the new movie, revealing in a new interview that he felt the new film "feels like the game."

"I think fans of the game will be happy, but at the same time, I think they should recognize that we want to make these characters as real and as grounded as possible," Tom Hooper, who plays Albert Wesker in the new movie, revealed to Collider. "I feel like the Wesker in the game obviously has that [Agent] Smith from The Matrix type idea. I wanted him to be a bit more three-dimensional than that, and have a moral high ground. It's not just as cut and dry as it is in the game. There's an origin element to Wesker in this, and what he maybe was before he turned into the one we see in a lot of the games."

The Umbrella Academy star continued, "But I think from an aesthetic point of view, I think the games really influence this well. It is an aesthetic that, certainly when we were shooting it, that I was like, 'Man, it feels like the game.' I'm really hoping that fans of the game take something nice away from it, that it's the game plus more. Plus more of a depth to these characters."

Hopper went on to reveal that the filmmaker behind the movie told him explicitly to prepare for the role by doing one thing: playing the game.

Written and directed by Johannes Roberts, the film features an all-star cast with Hopper just one of many game characters coming to life in it. Others set to appear in the reboot include Kaya Scodelario (Claire Redfield), Robbie Amell (Chris Redfield), Hannah John-Kamen (Jill Valentine), Avan Jogia (Leon S. Kennedy), and Neal McDonough (William Birkin).

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is produced by Constantin Film, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Tea Shop Productions. The film is set to release later this year on September 3rd.

You can check out all of our previous coverage of the upcoming Resident Evil movie reboot right here.