George A. Romero's Resident Evil (2025)

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Someone made an entire documentary about a rejected rough draft script? We are circling the drain of entertainment

The 2-hour YouTube review of the documentary, now that's entertainment

[Poya]

Originally Posted by Resident Evil Labs

Unfortunately the fan base would have hated his version too most likely. He changed certain characters races, people would have been pissed. He changed a bunch of the lore too. But it was a first draft so it could have changed even more. Idk I hope it would have been good like Land, and not awful like Survival. But we will never know

Not a surprise. Romero tends to have PoC as the primary leads, at least the more heroic ones, since his whole theme surrounding his work is how being a PoC in America, particularly if you're black, is just as horrifying as any scary movie.

[Mattgreenbean]

Just want to put in some love for Welcome to Raccoon City.

[Mr. Chaverria]

Originally Posted by Resident Evil Labs

I love that commercial and it does capture the feel of the games. But I have to challenge that, there are scenes in the live action films that 100 feel this authentic as well. Here's my examples, let me know your thoughts as well...

Resident Evil 02:

the scene were Alice wakes up in the shower and proceeds to explore the mansion, very RE imo. The scene with Alice in the lab with the dogs, felt classic RE as well.

Apocalypse:

The scenes with Jill exploring the church and walking past the woman statue, the scenes with Jill in the school and the dogs. Those are almost pure RE to a T imo.

Extinction:

The end were Alice goes to the underground lab and is walking around with her flashlight and exploring different rooms where bodies are impaled on poles, and other mutilated bides etc. I remember going, wow this really feels like RE

Welcome To Racoon City:

The whole Spencer Mansion approach in the helicopter, looking down at the Arklay mountains was fantastic imo. The whole outer mansion reveal, and the whole scene of Chris and the other team exploring the mansion. That scene alone was probably even closer than what the commercial did ,if not as close imo.

So there's some of my favorite scenes that I think fully capture what RE is. And I don't think they get enough credit honestly.

Yeah. But those movies mostly are crap.

The first one is decent w/ pretty good action of that time for that budget. It screams a movie of that time too w/ what Sony was buying up and pushing out to theaters.

But Apocalypse is shitty. RE3 (the movie) is mediocre. And I can't remember the rest but I saw them cuz I got the set as a gift. The action just kept getting weirder and somehow worse at times too. It's a very odd franchise that people supported for some reason. All the same... I never hated Jovovich in it. She's decent. But the characters are not great either. They're really stupid. Those films are something that fuels the fire of action movies needing to be dumb w/ who cares plots. Action movies or whatever genre... don't need to just be whatever that genre can add in to get your kicks. A good story would be nice. We don't get enough of those in genres like action or horror.

[RevolverOcelScott]

Huge Romero fan, but this documentary was pretty lackluster. Over 30 minutes of it is clips from the game with a guy reciting the various scripts in a monotone droning voice masked with a fuax old broadcast audio filter with pictures of an old radio. This didn't need to be a "film", this could have been a 30 minute youtube video.

[Zivouhr]

I think Romero's last zombie movie was Survival of the Dead. After that, I remember reading that he said producers only wanted more stuff like Walking Dead, drama with zombies in the background, where instead, George rather be making more thoughtful commentary in his films I think he said.

I do remember being interested back then in 1997 or 1998 when I heard Romero might make a movie about RE, but then something about just being a commercial for the games. I think I learned about it in an article of Electronic Gaming Monthly or some video game magazine.

His style of storytelling isn't as mainstream as Paul WS Anderson's as a possible reason his version was dismissed unfortunately, but not sure. I'll have to see what the documentary is about. That was 1998, and the Milla Jovovich movie Resident Evil released in 2002 I think.

I still remember going to see it on a Saturday evening to see RE 1 and the theater was wall to wall packed with people. Very noisy theater back when they still had those tiny seats (no big recliners with less seating like these days. 250+ seats vs 75 of today).

GA Romero
Year Title Director Writer Editor Other Notes
1968 Night of the Living Dead Yes Yes Yes Yes Also cinematographer
1971 There's Always Vanilla Yes No Yes Yes
1972 Season of the Witch Yes Yes Yes Yes
1973 The Crazies Yes Yes Yes No
1975 The Amusement Park Yes No Yes No
1977 Martin Yes Yes Yes No
1978 Dawn of the Dead Yes Yes Yes No
1981 Knightriders Yes Yes Yes No
1982 Creepshow Yes No Yes No
1985 Day of the Dead Yes Yes No No
1988 Monkey Shines Yes Yes No No
1993 The Dark Half Yes Yes No Yes
2000 Bruiser Yes Yes No No
2005 Land of the Dead Yes Yes No No
2007 Diary of the Dead Yes Yes No No
2009 Survival of the Dead Yes Yes No Yes

[Lemmy Lugosi]

Originally Posted by RevolverOcelScott

This didn't need to be a "film", this could have been a 30 minute youtube video.

At best. I’d say more like 20. And it should be available as an extra on one of the RE releases, not its own thing.

[Lemmy Lugosi]

Quote:
GA Romero
Year Title Director Writer Editor Other Notes
1968 Night of the Living Dead Yes Yes Yes Yes Also cinematographer
1971 There's Always Vanilla Yes No Yes Yes
1972 Season of the Witch Yes Yes Yes Yes
1973 The Crazies Yes Yes Yes No
1975 The Amusement Park Yes No Yes No
1977 Martin Yes Yes Yes No
1978 Dawn of the Dead Yes Yes Yes No
1981 Knightriders Yes Yes Yes No
1982 Creepshow Yes No Yes No
1985 Day of the Dead Yes Yes No No
1988 Monkey Shines Yes Yes No No
1993 The Dark Half Yes Yes No Yes
2000 Bruiser Yes Yes No No
2005 Land of the Dead Yes Yes No No
2007 Diary of the Dead Yes Yes No No
2009 Survival of the Dead Yes Yes No Yes

I feel like we should be hearing Madeline Kahn giving us a big ol’ YEEEESSSSSSSSS right about now.

[HipsterTrash]

Originally Posted by RevolverOcelScott

Huge Romero fan, but this documentary was pretty lackluster. Over 30 minutes of it is clips from the game with a guy reciting the various scripts in a monotone droning voice masked with a fuax old broadcast audio filter with pictures of an old radio. This didn't need to be a "film", this could have been a 30 minute youtube video.

Agreed. It's about 20 mins too long.

Something like Jodorowsky's Dune made me want to see that movie made (and it's an awful Dune adaptation) but this did the opposite for me. I read Romero's Resident Evil script and I liked it. But this film didn't make me want to see this get made.

[CelestialAgent]

German BD

[Poya]

Originally Posted by HipsterTrash

There's been plenty of documentaries about films there weren't made. Jodorowsky's Dune is a popular one.

Don't forget The Death of Superman Lives.

[Mr. Chaverria]

Originally Posted by HipsterTrash

Agreed. It's about 20 mins too long.

Something like Jodorowsky's Dune made me want to see that movie made (and it's an awful Dune adaptation) but this did the opposite for me. I read Romero's Resident Evil script and I liked it. But this film didn't make me want to see this get made.

Originally Posted by Poya

Don't forget The Death of Superman Lives.

What other documentaries do we have on films that didn't get made?

The Jodorowsky Dune one is amazing to me. Wrong or right, the dude is very engaging for conversation. Not that it would ever happen but I'd love to get a peak at that Dune book he has.

[kristoffer]

Originally Posted by CelestialAgent

German BD

Great! Thanks. Just ordered.

[Zivouhr]

I read the script Romero had back then, and it seemed good from what I read.
His style wasn't as modern or slick as some other modern styles, so I thought maybe that was why they didn't go with him for the first RE movie.
Romero didn't want to hold back on gore if he could help it. Land of the Dead, I remember him saying he wasn't too thrilled with the producers poking into his work on the sets. Too much interference. He preferred independent sets with a smaller crew.

George A Romero died at 77 years old, where smoking cigarettes finally caught up with him after all those years of smoking, but his undead zombie films live on. Creepshow was great too.

[Agent Bond]

I liked the first Resident Evil movie, but obviously Romero's version would've been better. I wish he had been allowed to make it before he passed away.

Someone made an entire documentary about a rejected rough draft script? We are circling the drain of entertainment

With how advanced AI is becoming, diehard fans could hypothetically make them visual realities now.

Huge Romero fan, but this documentary was pretty lackluster. Over 30 minutes of it is clips from the game with a guy reciting the various scripts in a monotone droning voice masked with a fuax old broadcast audio filter with pictures of an old radio. This didn't need to be a "film", this could have been a 30 minute youtube video.

I had to skip the first 20 minutes to get to the Resident Evil part.

[Zivouhr]

"George A Romero's Resident Evil (2025)" is free to watch on Youtube as of today.

Watching it, it spends the first hour summarizing Romero's Dead films, Resident Evil the game, and then finally around 1 hour in of the 1 hour 52 minute film, states that they didn't think Romero's RE script was good enough and was too much like Dawn of the Dead, so they didn't pursue his talents to direct. That was about the depth of that decision being revealed. I would've liked if they dove more into the decisions of why they didn't like it but it's really as simple as that. Whoever was in charge didn't like it enough.

A sort of interesting documentary but could've dived much more into Romero's version of RE. Maybe recreate it in full in animatics. Then it starts talking about Paul WS Anderson and focusing on being an action film. I would've liked to learn a lot more about the script and dialog and what made his version of the story unique for Resident Evil. This was mostly interviews about what others thought of the situation, RE and Romero.

[RocShemp]

Actually they also mention how one of the producers, who eventually made the Anderson/Jovovich movie, balked at the amount of violence in Romero's script. They even quote an interview where said producer insisted the Anderson/Jovovich movie wasn't violent at all.

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by RocShemp

Actually they also mention how one of the producers, who eventually made the Anderson/Jovovich movie, balked at the amount of violence in Romero's script. They even quote an interview where said producer insisted the Anderson/Jovovich movie wasn't violent at all.

That's interesting they thought the Milla film was non-violent.

Romero's version, I'm sure he would've went for unrated gore/zombie violence first, and then after they demanded it, created a theatrical cut for the MPA as he did with some of his films to get into theaters, like Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead had a theatrical version, an unrated extended version, a Dario Argento version. Day of the Dead, he was allowed by his distributor to make a gory version and they released it, but a rating where many theaters would not allow it in their theater, so it had a limited release, like Terrifier 2 did.

[DR Herbert West]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

That's interesting they thought the Milla film was non-violent.

Romero's version, I'm sure he would've went for unrated gore/zombie violence first, and then after they demanded it, created a theatrical cut for the MPA as he did with some of his films to get into theaters, like Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead had a theatrical version, an unrated extended version, a Dario Argento version. Day of the Dead, he was allowed by his distributor to make a gory version and they released it, but a rating where many theaters would not allow it in their theater, so it had a limited release, like Terrifier 2 did.

Dawn was also released unrated in theaters.

[RocShemp]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

That's interesting they thought the Milla film was non-violent.

Yeah, that part of the documentary was absurd. The interviewer noted how violent the Anderson movie was (using as examples the laser room scene and several other gory kills) but the the producer kept insisting those scenes weren't violent and even stated that it was important to him that the movie not be seen as violent. It seems he even tried to push for a PG-13 . Oh and he also insisted the game was not violent. The ensuing montage during that part of the documentary was intentionally hilarious.

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

Romero's version, I'm sure he would've went for unrated gore/zombie violence first, and then after they demanded it, created a theatrical cut for the MPA as he did with some of his films to get into theaters, like Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead had a theatrical version, an unrated extended version, a Dario Argento version. Day of the Dead, he was allowed by his distributor to make a gory version and they released it, but a rating where many theaters would not allow it in their theater, so it had a limited release, like Terrifier 2 did.

The documentary does point out that was indeed Romero's plan. As for the intended tone of the film, despite his penchant for gore and the allegorical subtext typical of his work, the three drafts discussed in the documentary show that the film was not going to be like his Dead movies, rather its own thing.

I used to have a pdf of the Romero script but never read it. I should track it down again. Given Constantin Film still owns the script, they should dust it off and have someone film it as-is, if nothing else as a novel resurrection of what might have been.