Resident Evil Movie: New Director Confirms Leon Won’t Return

Login to Continue Learning

New details about the upcoming Resident Evil film are starting to emerge. Just a few days ago, we learned that actor Paul Walter Hauser (Cobra Kai, Black Bird, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, The Naked Gun) would join the cast. Now, movie director Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons) has spoken with Entertainment Weekly, revealing that it will be an entirely original story set in the Resident Evil world. Despite fan speculation, Leon Kennedy from the games won’t be featured.

According to Cregger: “It’s an entirely original story. When you watch it, you’ll think, ‘This is very Zach.’ It just takes place in the Resident Evil universe. I don’t think fans of the games will be disappointed. I’m not going to steal Leon and put him in an original story. That would be presumptuous. But I respect the games enough where I can tell a Resident Evil story in the canon that still leaves everything they love from the games intact.”

Cregger further explained: “I think when you see it, you’ll understand how I can be obsessed with original ideas and still make a movie based on an intellectual property (IP). It might not make sense now, but I hope it will later.”

The only details we have about this new story are that a ‘hapless courier’ is sent to deliver a package to a remote hospital. He soon finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak and must battle hordes of mutated creatures to survive. The role of the courier is likely to be played by Austin Abrams, who was confirmed as the first actor for the film. Abrams has appeared in This Is Us, Euphoria, Wolf Creek, and Weapons.

In a unique start to his ruling against President Donald Trump’s administration on September 30, U.S. District Court Judge William Young included a scanned handwritten note sent to his office. The note read: “Trump has pardons and tanks – what do you have?” At the top of Young’s opinion in AAUP v. Rubio, which ruled that Trump’s effort to deport foreign-born student protesters was unconstitutional.

October 8, 2025

This will be the third film saga based on Capcom’s survival horror IP. The first series, directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and starring Milla Jovovich, consisted of six movies. In 2021, there was an attempted reboot with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which was more faithful to the games but still largely failed to captivate critics and fans. The following year, a less faithful TV series adaptation was released on Netflix; it was canceled after one season.

Cregger’s new Resident Evil film will debut in theaters on September 18, 2026. Meanwhile, a brand new game installment, Requiem, will be released on February 27, 2026. You can find our Gamescom 2025 hands-on preview here.