Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson Update Resident Evil: Retribution
Posted 03.20.12 by Ryan
We haven't heard much from Resident Evil: Retribution since its Sony-product-laden teaser trailer was released in January, but writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson and his wife and franchise star Milla Jovovich were on hand at this weekend's WonderCon to discuss the upcoming sequel.
During the movie's panel, the pair unveiled an action sequence from the sequel that shows Jovovich whipping zombies with chains, snippets of which appear in the teaser trailer (IGN has the full description of the scene, which you can read here). Prior to showing the footage, Anderson told ShockTillYouDrop that the action scene took place in the "corridors of Umbrella" and is a sign of how Anderson continues to push the franchise to new territory.
The clip we're showing today — set in the corridors of Umbrella — we've spend so much time in corridors. Corridors made of metal, corridors made of this and that. How are we going to be different? The production design in this movie is out of this world. Beautiful. We manufactured this one particular set out of glass — the type they make skyscrapers out of. It gave us a unique visual look because it's sort of self-illuminating. We had lights coming through the floor, wall and ceiling. So crisp and white. But once you start spraying the blood around, you've got red on the white floor, Milla dressed in black. It's a graphic and fresh look. It's definitely a Resident Evil movie. There's Milla, the undead, the Umbrella corporation logo — but it's a look you've never seen before in the franchise. That's what I'm always looking for.
Anderson has been with the franchise from the beginning, writing and directing the 2002 original, then writing and producing 2004's Resident Evil: Apocalypse and 2007's Resident Evil: Extinction before returning to write and direct 2010's Resident Evil: Afterlife. Anderson said that the Resident Evil movies are "a franchise I'm incredibly proud of."
When you go from the humble beginnings of the first film, which was a film financed outside of studio system — we didn't have a U.S. distribution deal in place — it went from this little film that could to building a billion dollar franchise. To evolve from that contained chamber piece horror the first movie was to a much more epic scope is very gratifying. It is an evolution though, because you look at the history of other franchises — which I do a lot — the ones that succeed are the ones that evolve. They say learn from the best or steal from the best and, obviously, a big fan of Alien, you look at the first two movies — from Ridley [Scott] and [James] Cameron — they're a genius lesson in how to keep a franchise fresh. The way Cameron came in and knew Ridley had done such a good job with that tight, claustrophobic movie there was no way he could match that. So, he made his own film — scary but it had all of these action elements as well. That's always been a lesson for me and that's what I tried to apply here. Allow yourself to evolve and mutate so you're delivering familiar elements for the fans but do something fresh as well.
Part of the freshness could be revealed in the movie's action scenes, which Jovovich described to Zap2It as "the most complex action sequences" she's ever done.
There are quite a few fight scenes. They're intense. Some of the most complex action sequences I've done in an action film. We got a lot of inspiration from Thai cinema. People in that word make brutal contact with each other. It's really violent and raw. In 3-D, you really have to hit people to sell it. I've been trained my whole life not to hit someone during a scene, and now they're like, "Hit them, Mila! Just hit them!"
Resident Evil: Retribution will see Jovovich return as Alice and face some friendly faces in her latest attempt to bring down the Umbrella Corporation and the zombies they caused. Boris Kodjoe will return as Luther, while Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr, and Colin Salmon will also return, despite their individual characters dying in previous movies. Video game characters Barry Burton (Kevin Durand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and Ada Wong (Li Bingbing, 1911) will also appear for the first time in a Resident Evil movie.
Next Showing: Resident Evil: Retribution opens September 14th