‘George Romero’s Resident Evil’ poster for the documentary fills fans imaginations with what could have been

Resident Evil is one of those video game franchises that are considered a tentpole for the industry, being incredibly popular with almost every delivery. But as far as movie and tv adaptation is concerned, it’s certainly not had the success we’ve seen recently with shows like Fallout and The Last of Us. But back then, almost 30 years ago, fans of the games were incredibly excited as George Romero, the legendary director of zombie cinema, was set to spearhead a Resident Evil movie.

What resulted from that was what can only be defined as production hell, which eventually resulted in the atrocious (yet highly successful) series of Paul W.S. Anderson movies that very loosely adapted some of the themes and creature designs from the games into wholly unrelated plots. So what exactly happened? ‘George Romero’s Resident Evil’, an upcoming documentary about the whole situation, is looking to answer that question.

If you want an even quicker look at what the lost film could have been, you can take a look at the documentary’s official poster (below), in which you’ll be able to see Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Wesker himself at the front, with Romero’s face surrounded by what seems to be redesigns of some of the classic monsters of the original game: Hunters and the dreaded Tyrant.

Back in 2000, when the whole ordeal took place, Romero spoke openly about the project to GameSpot: “I’m hoping that it can just be dark and chilling like the game - good zombies, good makeup, good effects,” he said. “I’ve had the advantage, doing my zombie films, of not having to have them rated. I think for the US release it’s going to have to fall within an ‘R’ because it’s going to be an expensive film, and nobody’s going to take the chance of letting it go unrated.”

Unfortunately, all we were left with is a series of live-action movies that are fun by themselves but that clearly didn’t care much for the source material, as well as some quirky, over-the-top CGI films made by the developers themselves, a low-budget movie reboot that went unnoticed by the vast majority of audiences, and a tv-show that wasn’t quite well received. You can find many of them on Netflix.