A little over a year ago, Zach Cregger, the comedian-turned-filmmaker behind 2022’s sleeper hit “Barbarian,” unleashed “Weapons,” an elliptical, dread-soaked story about an entire elementary school class that goes missing one night at 2:17 a.m. Indebted to John Carpenter and Paul Thomas Anderson, “Weapons” was a huge hit ($270 million worldwide against a $38 million budget), a critical darling and an eventual Oscar winner, with Amy Madigan winning a rare Academy Award for a horror movie.
Now he’s back with “Resident Evil,” an original tale set within the world of the super-successful Capcom video game franchise that began in 1996 and continues today (“Resident Evil: Requiem” hit home consoles this past February).
Cregger’s “Resident Evil” sparked a bidding war, with Sony (who had released previous adaptations of the videogames) ultimately winning. It’s in theaters now and it is a blast – an all-killer, no-filler horror thrill ride that follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who is tasked with delivering an important package during an outbreak that turns people into zombies and monsters and all sorts of unmentionable creepy-crawlies. Notably, Bryan isn’t based on an established video game character, and is essentially a random person who stumbles into the “Resident Evil” universe.
But the road to this unique twist on the “Resident Evil” franchise actually began in the middle of making “Weapons.”
Cregger was editing “Barbarian” when he suffered an immense personal tragedy – Trevor Moore, who part of the Whitest Kids U’ Know the sketch comedy troupe with Cregger that had a successful IFC series from 2007 to 2011, died after falling out of an upstairs balcony at his home in Los Angeles. Channeling his personal grief, Cregger wrote “Weapons” as a response to Moore’s death.
“That movie got going really fast. There was like virtually no breathing room between the completion of the script and the sale of the movie, and there was no development. It was bought and green light and go,” told TheWrap during a wide-ranging interview ahead of the release of “Resident Evil.”
But when the “Weapons” production was forced to pause during the COVID pandemic (leading to, among other things, an almost complete re-casting of the entire movie), Cregger said that he “found myself with this downtime, but I had this creative momentum, and so I figured I’m just going to keep writing.”
It was during this period that he wrote “Resident Evil” and “The Flood,” a sci-fi script that will be produced by Steven Spielberg and Amblin (more on that in a minute).
When “Weapons” was released last summer and had audiences buzzing, Cregger was in pre-production on “Resident Evil” in Prague. His experience with the film’s success was … a little different.
“When I did go see it in the theater in Prague, it was empty,” said Cregger. “I didn’t get to bask and be like ‘party over here.’ That didn’t happen. I was trying to figure out how to get fake snow brought into the city of Prague.”
But why “Resident Evil?” Cregger, who said he hasn’t seen any of the seven previous film adaptations of the videogame, was a big fan of the games and hit upon a unique take on how to tackle them in film format: a movie that “felt like it feels when you play the games.”
“I wanted to make a survival horror movie that was true to the experience of playing ‘Resident Evil,’ and I didn’t want to cannibalize the characters of ‘Resident Evil’ and tell the stories that the games already tell,” said Cregger. “I wanted to use the world of those games as the sandbox and tell an original story and design that story to unravel the way that the gameplay unravels. That was the mission statement – one character from A to B.”
That character is played by Abrams, with whom Cregger worked on “Weapons” as James, the drug addict and thief who inadvertently uncovers the mystery of where the kids have gone.
“He is a total dream to work with. He is a beautiful, kind person,” said Cregger. “And he’s such a formidable actor. He’s so good at whatever he tries to do. I have yet to see him find his limit. I think that guy’s range is miraculous.”
Cregger said that he had been fascinated with Abrams before he hired him for “Weapons” and was the first person he wanted to meet.
“He did not disappoint. And then when it was time to go and put this one together, it was like there wasn’t even a decision. There was not a moment of like, Well, who else could we get?” said Cregger. “In ‘Weapons’ he’s a thief and a junkie and everybody who sees that movie wants to like take him home. Give me a break. He’s magical.”
As for his mindset going into the production, Cregger said, “As a filmmaker, I think I got more confident in trusting my visual sense. I think I there’s a lot of technical things I learned making ‘Weapons,’ where I learned to actually consider the light source as I’m storyboarding,” Cregger said.
He would think about lighting even before visiting sets or locations (“here in my living room in LA”).
“I understand lenses better in a way I didn’t, and I understand how to utilize the edit in a way that I didn’t understand before,” Cregger said. “I grew as a filmmaker a lot during the making of ‘Weapons’ and I was able to come into this with a little bit more technical confidence.”
But filming “Resident Evil” was considerably easier than winning over the hardcore fans of the “Resident Evil” franchise. There was a surprising amount of fan backlash that met this “Resident Evil” movie, stemming from the fact that it isn’t representing preexisting characters and scenarios from the game series. (Confusingly, 2021’s feature “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City” and 2022’s “Resident Evil” Netflix series were both steeped in the game’s dense lore and both flopped — “Raccoon City” grossed $42 million and the Netflix show was canceled after one season.)
Not that Cregger was surprised by the pushback.
“I’m an adult. I’m a grown up. I know if you’re going to wade into a video game IP, you’re not going to get out unscathed. I think I was naïve to a degree that I thought, I’m a fan. I’m going to make the movie I wish existed. But, of course, the internet is going to internet. Why would I expect it to be any different for me?” said Cregger.
The experience has made him gun-shy about taking on another big IP.
“It’s like, why would I? Why would I do this again? I can write my own original stuff,” said Cregger. “I don’t have enough distance from this to even know how I feel about it yet. Maybe I’ll have perspective a year from now.”
But Cregger’s next year will be incredibly busy, and it’s hard to imagine him having enough time to reflect.
Moving on to ‘The Flood’
After “Resident Evil,” he plans to go on a brief vacation and begin soft prep for his next feature, “The Flood,” with hard prep beginning at the beginning of the year. (Warner Bros. has already assigned it an Aug. 11, 2028, release date.)
Cregger said that he was “very intimidated” by his first meeting with Spielberg, who is producing the film.
“I was very nervous. I went into his office and I was sitting there. Jeb Brody, who was working with him at the time [he has since departed for Ron Howard’s Imagine], was like, ‘Are you nervous?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ He’s like, ‘That’s OK.’ I was like, ‘What do I do, man? Do I gush? Do I not gush? Does he hate it when people gush?’ He’s like, ‘It’s OK to gush a little bit.’ But honestly, I needn’t have worried because he’s such an unpretentious dude,” Cregger said. “He loves movies. And so as soon as he sat down, we started talking about movies, and then it was just off to the races. I have relished every moment I’ve been able to spend with him.”
“The Flood,” according to Cregger, is his most “bizarre narrative structure, but it has to be told that way.” He described “Weapons” and “Barbarian” as “narratively dexterous” and “Resident Evil” as his most straightforward work. When it comes to “The Flood,” “it’s not shifting perspectives the way ‘Barbarian’ and ‘Weapons’ are.” “It’s a different animal,” said Cregger. “It feels really new to me and really challenging. I feel very intimdated by it. But I think that’s another good reason to do it.”
Instead of horror, “The Flood” is science fiction that has “moments of horror.” Still, he describes it as “my most disturbing movie. But it’s not intended to be scary. It’s a bit more of an adult movie, a little bit more complicated, and ultimately the point is not to be scary, even though I think it is sometimes,” said Cregger.
And just a few weeks after “The Flood” hits theaters, “Gladys,” a prequel to “Weapons” based on a “chapter” cut out of the original movie, will also arrive from Warner Bros. Cregger is quick to point out that he’s not writing (that’ll be handled by “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” scribe Zack Shields) or directing the new project, which he described as “a Gladys origin story.”
“It’s a character study of Gladys and how she became what we know her as. And there’s a lot more Amy in this movie,” said Cregger, referring to Madigan, who will star. “It’s about what she used to be and how did that happen.” He also promised “a lot of pastel colors.” Make of that what you will.
While Cregger’s output over the past few years has been unstoppable – as unstoppable as Bryan’s forward momentum through the zombie-filled Raccoon City, some might say – the filmmaker is quick to point out that, once he wraps up “The Flood,” audiences shouldn’t expect his future films to arrive at this fast of a clip.
“I will never do this again. I can’t. It’s not sustainable and I’ll burn out. This is the end of the term,” said Cregger.
But what would that break look like?
“I might be painting. And I’m not joking. I’ve got to be an artist in another way besides being a filmmaker for my personal sanity. I know making a movie is so rewarding and it’s a beautiful thing and I hope to make other movies – don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that,” Cregger explained.
“But I have to have a chapter where I’m able to create freely and without consensus and without result. I think that’s the real thing: I have got to be able to create with no expectation of a result or an outcome. And it’s difficult to keep that as your philosophy when you’re spending millions of dollars of someone else’s money.”
Cregger added: “I love watercolor. I’d love to do that for a while.”
A prolonged period of time without a new Zach Cregger movie? Talk about scary.
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