In the aftermath of Resident Evil’s record-shattering opening weekend at the box office, writer-director Zach Cregger is taking a hard-earned victory lap in the press. For months leading up to the release of this film, any bit of press Cregger did seemed to inevitably get marred in the quagmire that was the obnoxious discourse surrounding whether or not the movie was going to be ‘faithful’ enough to the video games or not.
This was a real lose-lose situation for Cregger, because it proved incredibly difficult for him to effectively combat such claims without just spoiling elements of the movie prior to its release. Now, however, with the film out, Cregger is able to talk openly about the process of making the best-reviewed video game movie of all time.
This has been delightful to see, as the contrast between pre-release and post-release interviews is truly something. Before the film’s release, many of Cregger’s interviews felt uncomfortable. But now, he’s cutting loose and able to truly soak up the fact that the film outperformed expectations in every way. In a recent interview, Cregger even revealed that Austin Abrams’ central character of Bryan from Resident Evil was influenced by three very different heroes of Hollywood legend: John McClane, Marty McFly, and Kevin McCallister.
As a refresher, John McClane is the protagonist from John McTiernan’s Die Hard, played by Bruce Willis. Marty McFly is the protagonist from Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future, as played by Michael J. Fox. And last but not least Kevin McCallister is the protagonist from Chris Columbus’ Home Alone, played by the young Macaulay Culkin. In isolation, these sound like a weird trio of characters to have had such a profound influence on a new Resident Evil movie, but as Cregger explained, they served as keypoints within a larger spectrum of heroism for the film.
With regard to he and Abrams’ work crafting the trajectory of Bryan’s arc throughout the film, Cregger said, “Our baseline was Marty McFly. When you’re a little more badass, we’ll sprinkle in a little John McClane… And when you have no dignity and you’re shrieking and panicking, Kevin McCallister.”
Through using these iconic characters as waypoint markers, Cregger and Abrams were able to develop a shorthand and utilize them to shape how Bryan as a character would respond to a given threat. The end result speaks for itself, with Bryan being far and away the most human character to ever lead a Resident Evil movie, and that clearly resonates with audiences across the globe.
So the next time you see Resident Evil, keep an eye out for this and try to guess which of these three iconic heroes of the screen Abrams is modeling his performance after at any given moment.
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