Resident Evil Documentary
Image: Ryan Carr

Update #2 [Thu 21st November, 2024 10:15 GMT]: Brandon Salisbury's documentary on George A. Romero's unproduced Resident Evil film will be released on January 7th across digital and on-demand in the US and Canada, the horror publication Bloody Disgusting is reporting.

The film will be distributed in those regions by by Uncork'd Entertainment, with the president of the distributor Keith Leopard, telling the horror website it is "honored to bring George A. Romero’s Resident Evil to fans who have long awaited the untold story behind this legendary, unmade project."

Since we last wrote about the film back in March 2023, it should be noted that there have been a further two trailers for the film that we seemed to miss at the time, offering a closer look at the style of the film and some of the talking heads involved. These were shared via Residence of Evil, a YouTube channel that is dedicated, unsurprisingly, to all things Resident Evil.

We reached out to the director of the film to try to find out more about the January release, including whether the documentary has yet to acquire a European distributor and whether those outside the US and Canada should also expect to tune into the film at the beginning of 2025.

Salisbury told us that a company called Dolphin Media currently owns the European rights (including the rights to the UK) and is in the process of sublicensing the film to different countries. It's, therefore, not confirmed at this point whether the film will also be on demand and digital in Europe, but Salisbury tells us, at the very least, the German Blu-Ray and DVD being released next year (February 27th) also lists English language options (alongside German).

Update #1 [Wed 29th Mar, 2023 09:30 BST]: The teaser trailer for the documentary has now been released. You can watch it below!

Original Story [Wed 7th Sep, 2022 13:30 BST]: At the Creature Feature Weekend event at the end of August, a new documentary about George A. Romero's canceled Resident Evil film was announced.

This was a film adaptation that The Night of the Living Dead director was putting together in the late 90s for Constantin Films, with the help of producer Peter Grunwald. But, as the story goes, Constantin eventually dropped Romero from the project, and years later, decided to go with Paul W. S. Anderson's vision for the film instead, leading to 2002's Resident Evil, starring Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez.

An early script from Romero's film surfaced online in 2001 and has been shared around the internet quite a bit in the years since. This has led fans to wonder what might have been.

This new documentary, directed by the filmmaker Brandon Salisbury, with the assistance of Romero's assistant Jason Bareford, aims to provide fans with a definitive account of what the project actually was, and the story of its development.

As Salisbury revealed in an interview with The Resident Evil Podcast, he didn't want to just film a straightforward documentary with talking heads but instead wanted to pay homage to Romero's style and the game itself. As a result, the filming takes place in an abandoned mansion designed to look like the Spencer Mansion and is shot in a style similar to the great horror director's.

As for Bareford, he is clearly uniquely placed to talk about the project, being one of five people who were in the room when it was originally in development. He was also the person who was apparently tasked with playing through the game and recording the footage so that Grunwald and Romero could watch it back and decide what elements to keep for the script.

The project currently has a tentative release date for 2024, but we'll keep you posted as more news becomes available. For now, why not watch the live-action trailer for Resident Evil 2, which George A. Romero directed around the same time as working on the project?

Have you read the Romero script? What are your thoughts? Let us know below!

[source projectumbrella.podbean.com, via twitter.com]