MOVIE NEWS – It looks like Avan Jogia may return as Leon S. Kennedy to save the President’s daughter if Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City eventually gets a sequel.

The new film, which will debut in theatres on December 2, is another reboot of the Resident Evil series and has nothing to do with the previous instalments starring Milla Jovovich. As the trailer shows, it’s more faithful to the video games, as it features characters and events from Resident Evil 1 and 2.

Writer-director Johannes Roberts already has an idea of where he wants to take the series if Welcome to Raccoon City does well enough at the box office to get the green light for a sequel. In an interview with SFX, he spoke about the new film and the possible future of the story. Roberts sticks to his plan to draw inspiration from the games and promises that the events of Resident Evil 4 could also be brought back into Welcome to Raccoon City 2.

“I could very much see [Resident Evil 4] being part of the next episode. There’s a lot of interesting stories and little details that we’ve put into this movie, but it would be amazing to expand on. There are some characters in the game that we didn’t use, but we’d love to bring them to the big screen in the next episode. There’s another side to Resident Evil with Village and Resident Evil 7, which is a much darker, more horrific world.”

Leon Kennedy is also a playable character in Resident Evil 4, this time hired to save President Ashley’s daughter, so it will be interesting to see if this role makes it into the film. Johannes Roberts’ mention of Resident Evil 4 alongside the recent seventh and eighth instalments in the base game series suggests that co could combine elements from all of these games to form the story of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City 2.

It’s worth noting that Roberts also mentions characters not used in the first film who could appear in the sequel. Barry Burton, a fan favourite who played a significant role in the original video game, is conspicuously absent from the trailers. The same can be said for Rebecca Chambers, another character who played an important role in the original game before getting her spin-off in Resident Evil 0. Perhaps they could be one of the characters the director was referring to…?

Roberts also explained why he decided to make the new Resident Evil film more like the original games, emphasising horror and less action. He describes Welcome to Raccoon City as a “scary, full-fledged movie without knowing the prequels” that “should appeal to a vast audience”, hoping to appeal to more traditional moviegoers who are unfamiliar with video games. He also notes that the perception that gamers don’t go to the cinema has changed, which is why so many references and ‘easter eggs’ have been included in the film.

Source: GamesRadar