14 DAY TRIAL // Paul W.S. Anderson, the director of the recently released Resident Evil: Retribution, believes that the success of the movie series based on the universe from Capcom is linked to the way he understands video games and is committed to making them more popular.
Speaking to Gamasutra, the director stated, “I was the first generation of filmmakers where video games were a serious part of my life. I regard them as just as valid as books or plays in terms of an intellectual property.”
He added, “I think people underestimate how difficult a job it is to adapt a video game into a movie. People at the studios look at a video game, see the animated sequence, and think it looks like a movie, so how hard can it be to turn it into a film? It's actually quite difficult.”
Anderson says that he was always a fan of the Resident Evil experience and that in order to create the script for the first movie he locked himself in his home for one month in order to play the games and absorb their atmosphere and their style.
For the director, one big problem is that many movie producers do not understand the essence of video games and they see a movie based on a successful series as only a way of making money quickly and with a limited investment.
The Resident Evil movie franchise has managed to earn more than $700 million (€539 million) and the most recent title, Retribution, has also opened strongly at the box office, with a sixth game already in pre-production.
The sixth core Resident Evil 6 game was launched recently by Capcom and has received a mixed reaction from players and reviewers.
The game is massive and offers three cooperative-enabled campaigns but many have complained that it has abandoned the survival horror mechanics that made the series a hit.