Movies
‘Resident Evil’ Reboot Screenwriter Talks Returning to the Scary Roots of the Games
Say what you will about Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil film universe, but at least the guy gave us entertaining films (even if they progressively drifted from the game’s canon). But now with Anderson off doing Monster Hunter (with his wife Milla Jovovich in the lead role), the Resident Evil film franchise is in reboot mode.
In an interview with DiscussingFilm, screenwriter Greg Russo talks about the first draft of the screenplay for the upcoming reboot of the film franchise, which was announced last year, with James Wan producing.
In the interview, Russo describes the progress of the screenplay as “good”, having worked on the reboot for about a year before Wan came in. After that, Russo says, “my involvement on that project has kind of concluded, so I’m not sure what they’ll really do with it”. However, Russo says that the producers “were happy with [my draft]”, which Russo says attempted to go back to the horror roots of the franchise, in lieu of action.
“Obviously I’m a huge fan of the franchise so to work on that was a lot of fun,” says Russo. “For me it was very clear-cut that I wanted to go back and make it scary again like a horror film in terms of the classic James Wan style so that was the pitch, going back and looking what made the games scary in the first place so yea Resident Evil 7 was a bit of a touchstone for my draft.”
When you think about it, the RE film franchise aped the action-oriented mayhem of Resident Evil 5 and 6, and drifted away from the scares. Russo agrees, though “not to shame the original film franchise that was made, I think that did very well”. But, as a fan, Russo says that he “always considered the franchise to be horror at the forefront and action as a secondary feature.”
Whether or not Russo’s draft will survive is yet to be seen, but at least going back to what made the games great in the first place is a good start.
The last time we wrote up a box office story about Curry Barker’s Obsession was at the start of June, when the film passed $200 million at the box office to become the highest grossing horror movie of 2026 (so far). One month later, that worldwide total has DOUBLED.
Worldwide, Curry Barker’s box office phenomenon Obsession has scared up $403 million to date, with the film’s domestic total alone hitting a staggering $245.3 million. We must remind you that the production budget for the independently-made Obsession was a reported $750,000, with distributor Focus Features later acquiring the film for a reported $15 million.
It probably seemed like a big spend for Focus at the time, but it didn’t take very long for the company to start raking in incredible profits from Barker’s little movie that could. Obsession is not only the highest grossing horror movie of 2026 (so far), but at this point it’s become one of the most downright profitable movies in the history of the box office – no matter the genre.
As of last week, Obsession is now also likely making a ton of money at home. The film was released on Digital last Tuesday, and while studios don’t typically report their digital earnings, it’s pretty safe to say that Obsession is making a killing on home video. The physical media release for the film is still incoming as well, with Obsession hitting 4K/Blu-ray next week.
Obsession has now been playing in theaters for just under two months, and it’s still in the Top 10 at the domestic box office here in the early days of July. And the film’s box office run isn’t over yet. Despite the aforementioned at-home release ahead of the holiday, Curry Barker’s Obsession took in another $5.3 million in theaters across the 3-day Fourth of July Weekend!
A24 and director Kane Parsons are nipping at the heels of Focus and Barker with their own horror hit Backrooms, which itself has now hit $349.7 million at the global box office.
The real winner of this particular box office battle? The horror fans, of course. Up next is new franchise installment Evil Dead Burn, which will arrive in theaters this coming weekend.
Stay tuned for more on the Horror Box Office.
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