The Hollywood Byte #23: Resident Evil and Castlevania Movies

Paul W.S. Anderson has done it all when it comes to Hollywood. The writer/director/producer served as the keynote speaker for the inaugural Hollywood and Games Summit put on by The Hollywood Reporter and the Game Developer's Conference on June 27 in Los Angeles. Anderson flew into LA for his talk from Mexico City, where he's producing the third Resident Evil movie, Resident Evil: Extinction.

Anderson was one of the first writer/directors to tackle the adaptation of game to film with Mortal Kombat. Although he's veered off and worked on other projects like Soldier, Event Horizon, and Aliens vs. Predator, he has remained in the game for many of his films, including the Resident Evil trilogy, the upcoming Dead or Alive movie, and the adaptation of Castlevania.

"When we were doing Mortal Kombat, people were saying movies made out of video games never work," said Anderson. "I heard that from a lot of people, even after Mortal Kombat was the number one movie in America for three weeks. They thought that was a one-off."

Paul W.S. Anderson Resident Evil

Anderson said that now that there have been 16 proper, fully fledged adaptations of video games, it's clear that it's a bonafide genre that, if done correctly, can make a terrific amount of money, as well. He added that next to Spider-Man, the Resident Evil film franchise is the second most profitable franchise for Sony Pictures. The original Resident Evil film cost $33 million to make and generated over $102 million in global box office. Resident Evil: Apocalypse cost $45 million and took in over $129 million worldwide theatrically. The third film is shooting now and has a 2007 release planned.

"The idea is that Resident Evil: Extinction is like a postscript to the world of the video games," said Anderson. "It's set several years in the future when the Umbrella organization has been unable to contain the various outbreaks of the T-virus. The world has pretty much been decimated and there are only small handfuls of survivors left. The world itself is not as we know it now."

Milla Jovovich reprises her role as Alice, Mike Epps is along as L.J., and Oded Fehr plays Carlos Oliveira again. Newcomers Ai Larter (Claire), Spencer Locke (K-Mart) and Ashanti (Nurse Betty) join the team, which is hiding out in the Nevada desert.