Austin Abrams On Resident Evil Fan Backlash Over Story

The actor at the centre of Zach Cregger's $200-million zombie hit says he understands why longtime gamers are furious the film skips their favourite characters entirely.

Austin Abrams isn't pretending the anger doesn't exist.

Cregger's "Resident Evil" has pulled in close to $200 million worldwide in a little over two weeks, per TheWrap, and it did that without a single one of the games' recognisable characters. No Chris Redfield, no Jill Valentine. Instead, Cregger built an entirely new story around Bryan, a medical courier who gets dragged into a Raccoon City outbreak, and handed the whole thing to Abrams to carry on his back.

That choice has not gone down easily with the series' hardcore base. And Abrams, in conversation with TheWrap, didn't dodge it.

"I read a book that I love and then they're going to do another one or make it into a different one. You don't want someone to f–k it up. You have a personal connection with it. I get what that feeling is like. There's that passion there," he said.

He's careful to frame the film as an attempt at honesty rather than provocation. "We had a strong base of love and I think our best shot at making something that they would enjoy," Abrams said, adding that fan service "doesn't work in a meaningful way" and that freshness was the only real bet worth making. Still, he wanted that on record too: "I only send love to all those people."

A part built on nerves, not lore

Cregger first floated the project to Abrams while the two were finishing "Weapons," the film that turned into both a commercial hit and, improbably, an Oscar winner. But nothing was locked in until post-production wrapped. "It wasn't until he was in post-production for 'Weapons' that he called and wanted me to read the script basically," Abrams said. He'd never played a Resident Evil game ("too afraid to play it," by his own admission) until after landing the role.

Unlike "Weapons," an ensemble piece, this one rides entirely on Abrams. He said that reality sat with him uneasily through the shoot. "There's a lot of feelings of the unknown came up," he admitted, though the mood on set eventually talked him down. "You're not getting like red lights. You keep going."

The film also went through a late trim. Cregger reportedly stripped out a chunk of the jokes after a test screening skewed too broad. Abrams recalled pushing back gently in the room, calling some of what got cut stuff they'd taken "to a place that was too far, really for our own enjoyment."

Cregger, for his part, wasn't shy about the casting logic. "There wasn't even a decision. There was not a moment of like, well, who else could we?" he told TheWrap. "No, it's Austin."

There's no part for Abrams in Cregger's next film, the sci-fi project "The Flood," which has already cast Jennifer Lawrence. Asked if he's becoming Cregger's Kurt Russell, Abrams grinned and passed the line back: "Hey, you said it. I didn't say it."