MOVIE NEWS – “It’s outrageous” – Paul W.S. Anderson, the director behind the Resident Evil films, takes aim at filmmakers who adapt video games without ever touching them. The British director also laid out what he treated as the non-negotiable priority while building the genuinely successful movie saga inspired by Capcom’s games.
When Ronald D. Moore was hired to steer the God of War TV series, one of his first moves was powering up his PlayStation. He wasn’t as devoted a gamer as his sons, but he still spent enough time with the saga to feel ready for the assignment. That prep now shields him from the jab Paul W.S. Anderson, who helmed the original Resident Evil films, tossed at other filmmakers a few days ago.
“I Think It Matters That I’m a Fan of What I’m Adapting.”
“I think it matters that I’m genuinely a fan of what I’m adapting,” the British director told PC Gamer recently. He said it’s baffling to hear directors promote a game movie and then admit they’ve never played the game. “It’s outrageous,” he insisted.
To make his point, he asked whether anyone would tackle War and Peace while saying they never read it, because the script alone was “enough.” For him, skipping the game disrespects the people who love it and have poured countless hours, days, and months into that world. That’s why, he argued, anyone making an adaptation needs a real, hands-on grasp of the material.
Anderson also thinks that connection can’t stop at the director, because the whole crew has to understand what they’re translating for the screen. He said he pushes his production designers to play the game or at least watch full playthroughs so they learn its look and language, and he wants his cinematographer to study how the camera behaves. The obvious follow-up, though, is why his Resident Evil movies ended up so far from Capcom’s games.
Anderson has revisited that action-horror run and said his guiding goal was to capture the series’ “DNA” and aesthetic while accepting that film is a different medium. Playing is interactive, he noted, while a movie is passive by definition. Games can spend lots of time on roaming, backtracking, and puzzle solving. A film, he said, needs energy and momentum instead of trying to replicate that exact rhythm.
Why Didn’t He Adapt the Resident Evil Story?
So why didn’t he simply adapt the plot of Capcom’s survival-horror games? Anderson said it starts with respecting the intellectual property and understanding what players actually get out of the experience. For Resident Evil, he saw that payoff as the visceral thrill of shooting – and the fear that comes with it – which is why he leaned into horror on screen.
He recalled a moment from playing when dogs burst through a window and the PlayStation controller rattled in his hands. “I nearly died of fright,” he said. But he added that you can’t recreate that exact scare in a theater, because viewers would see the setup and know the dog is about to jump.
The conversation, which also touched on his work on Mortal Kombat (1995) and Monster Hunter (2020) starring Milla Jovovich, is broader than the excerpts above. He even defended his approach to Aliens vs. Predator as a key factor in reviving both properties. Still, his blunt complaint about directors adapting games without playing them is the line that stands out most – and it’s not a charge that fits him.
What about you? When a video game becomes a movie or series, what should matter most? Total fidelity to the original story? The Last of Us largely proved that approach can work, but Fallout also showed that a looser take can land. Drop your view in the Discord server.
Source: 3DJuegos
