Brandon Davis got to chat with Director Zach Cregger at San Diego Comic Con 2026 about his upcoming film Resident Evil and what to expect from this brand-new story within the Resident Evil universe.
Starting their chat, Davis asks about Cregger’s experience at Comic Con, to which Davis shares that it was essentially his first time at the convention, although on a technicality, he had participated in a Barbarian (2022) screening during the festival; however, it was out of town. Prompted further on what he would possibly geek out on if given the opportunity to explore the floor, Cregger jokes at first that it would be a “sensory overload” but that he would most likely go straight to the video game stuff.
Moving on to discuss the film, Davis shares his excitement for its theatrical release, telling Cregger, “You were just fearless with and scaring us and seemingly also scaring Austin (Abrams) quite a bit,” with Cregger laughing and commenting on how “we almost killed Austin a couple of times making this movie.”
Following up, Davis asked what moment on set helped it click in Cregger’s mind where it felt as though they had truly created this world with Raccoon City and a character that “feels like he’s living in it.” Cregger was quick to respond, stating that there were many moments when making a movie in which you get the feeling, stating that “every day there’s so many problems, but there’s also a lot of victories,” emphasizing the importance of focusing on enjoying the wins you achieve in order to avoid being demoralized. He continues to share that one sequence that truly stood out to him was a moment was a scene that was particularly dangerous and took a lot of forethought, in which “Austin is running down the street, and these zombies are jumping off the buildings, and they’re like landing and detonating all around him.”
Cregger knew he did not want to use VFX for the scene as he felt it would not look right, which meant shooting the scene practically, creating months of rehearsals in advance that focused on every detail in coordination with one another, such as using cranes, dropping blood bags, and having a camera car that followed Abrams closely.
Stressing the need for coordination, Cregger goes on to talk about the need for everyone to move perfectly, such as Abrams running at a consistent speed, stating, “The camera car has to be moving right behind him at the right proximity, at the right speed. If he trips and falls, he will get run over.”
Furthermore, he reinforces the complexity of the scene as he describes the 150lb bags of blood that are dropping and exploding around Abrams and the car, hitting the camera and causing them to reshoot takes, sharing that in the film, there’s a moment in which “he’s (Abrams) an inch to the right and if he’d gone a little bit further, he would have died because one of the blood bags triggered to early and landed an inch away from his head.”
“It was crazy. Like, we shouldn’t have done it. It was reckless and dangerous, but it looks awesome. It’s like one of those sequences where I’m like, I can’t believe we were able to turn that into reality.”
When asked how many times they got to attempt such a shot, Cregger replied that there were a few different angles they managed to get, stating, “I think we did it like five times each angle.” He proceeded to mention the reset was insane, especially due to it being done on a snowy road, saying that in between takes they needed to put new blood bags on the cranes, hoist them up, clean the road, reapply snow, and reset. He jokingly states that it felt “stupid in retrospect” but that ultimately he felt it paid off.
Davis shares a video from a friend of his who is a major fan of Resident Evil, creating an impromptu fan question segment of sorts for Cregger, with the video getting quite a laugh out of Cregger. Although audio from the video was distorted, Cregger seemingly answers the question, talking about actor Paul Walter Hauser, sharing that he is such a wonderful guy coming onto this film straight from another movie, stating that “he hit the ground running and it was a treat.”
Jokingly ending the interview with a final question from the fan video, he states, “What am I doing next? It’s something with Paul. I’ll get on it.”
Watch Resident Evil exclusively in theatres September 18, 2026.
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