New Pics from Resident Evil: Afterlife, Plus Shawn Roberts Discusses Kicking Milla Jovovich
Posted 05.30.10 by Ryan
With Resident Evil: Afterlife not opening until September 10, Sony Screen Gems is slowly trickling out images from the upcoming sequel to bait fan interest. The first set showed returning star Milla Jovovich in a variety of poses. This next wave also includes Ali Larter and newcomer Wentworth Miller as game character Chris Redfield, in a variety of poses. There's even one photo that depicts zombies, an element that has been slowly decreasing from the zombie-game-turned-movie-franchise since the first Resident Evil hit theaters in 2002.
Shawn Roberts, who joins Afterlife to play the villainous Dr. Albert Wesker, told FEARnet that fans will be pleased with the zombies.
They will not disappoint. We've got the same prosthetics people from the previous films. We took a couple of characters from the game and put them in the movie, which is kind of neat. We brought the dogs back, and I made them my pets.
Roberts has consistently claimed that Afterlife will remain true to the game, an element that has been missing almost entirely since writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson adapted the game into Resident Evil. Roberts says that everyone agreed that his character "has to be for the fans" and that one fight scene was taken "directly from the Resident Evil 5 video game." This meant that Roberts got to spend some time, quite literally, beating and kicking Jovovich.
The first scene we had together, I am wearing these huge boots, and I walk over to her and literally kick her — just kick her over. She didn't make a squeak or a whimper — nothing. She wants to bring everything she can to a role. It's not until they shout "Action!" that the badass in her really comes out. She is the sweetest woman with a beautiful little girl, who all of a sudden turns into this badass. She owns the role. She really knows how to do this, which makes it really comfortable when you have fists and guns and knives flying about.
Another rumored addition to Afterlife will be the return of Jill Valentine, a game character that only made it into the first sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse before disappearing. A couple photos of actress Sienna Guillory as Valentine reportedly surfaced during a Sony conference where Anderson showed a Valentine-heavy clip of Afterlife.
What will be entirely new with Afterlife, besides adhering to the game franchise, is the use of 3-D. Afterlife was shot in the popular format, which Roberts admits is an exciting, albeit slower, process.
I love that you can go behind the cameras, put on the glasses, and instantly see what you just shot in full 3D. All the sets have been designed to pop. But it does take longer to set up shots because everything has to be so precise. It pulls you in more — that little extra bit of eye candy.
For fans of the game, zombies and Jill Valentine may be all the eye candy they need to head to theaters on September 10.