"Resident Evil" in the house!
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"Resident Evil" in the house!


Director Paul W.S. Anderson on set with wife/lead actress Mila Jovovich.
Based on the video game franchise of the same name, the first film debuted in 2002 and each subsequent film in the franchise has grossed more than its predecessor, with 2010's "Resident Evil: Afterlife" taking in over US $290 million in worldwide box office. The director of the franchise, Paul W.S. Anderson speaks about the upcoming fifth film "Resident Evil: Retribution" which also stars his wife and lead actress Mila Jovovich on the new characters and his working relationship with creator Capcom on the upcoming film set to be released in 2012.

Interview with Paul W.S. Anderson by Adam Chitwood of Collider courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing International (Malaysia).


Q: How similar would "Resident Evil: Retribution" the movie, be with the video game?
Anderson:
There's a great action sequence which we've been inspired by from the fifth game, which is where the characters are driving in a Hummer through the desert and they're being chased by zombies shooting machine guns on motorbikes. We've taken that and we've kind of run with it. We're not gonna use a Hummer this time we're gonna use a Rolls Royce Phantom, cause no one's ever done a car chase with a Rolls Royce Phantom before. And I've discovered why, because it's really, really expensive.

Q: Which characters from the game did you decide to 'bring to life' in the upcoming movie?
Anderson:
[The new characters] is something that's kind of come out of Mila [Jovovich] and I talking to fans, feeling the characters that people wanted to come in. [We chose] three of those that seem to be the fan-favorites that we'd never touched on.

Q: Who are the three characters?
Anderson:
Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, and Barry Burton. We really went out of our way to get people who looked as much like their characters as possible from the game. This actor Johann Urb, who I'm very excited to be working with, not only is he a really good actor but he looks like Leon Kennedy. I mean you put photographs of them side-by-side, it's almost like he was manufactured by Capcom.


Mila Jovovich is also the wife of director Paul W.S. Anderson and will reprise her role in the upcoming movie.
Q: What do think about the recent comments that say the franchise has moved on more towards the action genre rather than the original horror elements?
Anderson:
One of the strengths of the "Resident Evil" game franchise is that they keep changing it up. Some people complain about that, and it's a complaint I hear sometimes about the movies as well, "Resident Evil" is horror, why do you keep doing action?' Well, that's one of the things that the games have done as well, they've always kept an element of horror but they've become increasingly action-driven games with these phenomenal action sequences. If you make just hardcore horror, there's a limited audience for that. Whereas if it's horror mixed with action, I think you kinda broaden your potential fanbase.

Anderson says he is excited to have actor Johann Urb onboard to play Leon Kennedy.
Q: How is the creator of the franchise, Capcom, involved in this movie?
Anderson:
The first thing I did when I signed to do the first "Resident Evil" film, literally my signature was drying on the contract, is I got on a plane and I went to Osaka and I met with everyone from Capcom, and I spent three days there kind of talking to them about the movie, and what my idea was, and what did they think of that idea, and that's been the way our relationship has been since then. There's a very open dialogue between me and Capcom. They know what the stories are, they get the script, they make comments, sometimes we change things because of those comments. I certainly don't wanna kill a character that they want to continue, or I don't want characters to do things that they feel would be wrong within the world of the video games. The world of the video game and the world of the movies, they exist within the same universe, but they're running on slightly separate tracks.

"Resident Evil: Retribution" will be in cinemas on 14 September 2011 in 3D!


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