A new Resident Evil movie is on the way from director Johannes Roberts, titled Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, and one of the stars of the film has discussed what fans can expect from the latest film instalment.
In an interview with Collider, Tom Hopper, who is set to play Albert Wesker, discussed his approach to the fan-favourite villain and how he wanted to delve deeper into what Wesker turned from the captain of the STARS police force to the antagonist fans will be expecting.
“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… 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. 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 continued to explain the faithfulness of the upcoming reboot compared to the first two critically acclaimed titles in the long-running video game series – as the movie will explore the events of both the Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City.
“There’s been previous films and I was thinking, ‘How’s this one going to be different?’ The one thing that I’d been told by my team and everything is like, ‘This is like going back, it’s a whole new starter, and it’s one that’s going to try and hopefully please the fans of the game.’ When I started reading it, it really felt more like a script from a game, from one of the games. It felt immersive and it felt dirtier. It felt like Raccoon City was a grim place to be, and I immediately felt like it was a world that I related to more than anything. I’ve seen towns like this in America. That’s what excited me about it, that it felt relatable, I think. Even though you’ve got influence from the game, it felt like a relatable place to live.”
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City arrives in theatres on September 3rd 2021 and stars Kaya Scodelario (Crawl) as Claire Redfield, Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp) as Jill Valentine, Robbie Amell (Arrowverse) as Chris Redfield, Tom Hopper (The Umbrella Academy) as Albert Wesker, Avan Jogia (Zombieland: Double Tap) as Leon S. Kennedy, and Neal McDonough (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) as William Birkin.
