The Resident Evil movies have taken a lot of heat from some fans for their divergences from the canon of the video games. However, director Paul W.S. Anderson (who also directed the first Mortal Kombat movie) is a big fan of the game franchise, and thinks that they’ve made four successful movies (with a fifth in the making) because of that respect for the source material.
“Despite what a lot of haters on the internet might say, I love the Resident Evil games. And these movies are made with a huge knowledge and real passion for the games,” said Anderson. “A lot of video game movies are made by directors who don t know the video games they are based on from a hole in the head. They don t do justice to the games, they don t immerse themselves in the games, they don t understand what people liked from the games. And that is the wrong approach and clearly those movies don t work. You can fool people once, you know. I was excited to see the Tomb Raider movie the first time it came out. I saw it, it wasn’t very good, I wasn t very excited to go and see the second film. I think with Resident Evil it is very telling that each movie has done better than the one before.”
“You are also dealing with substantially different timelines, he said. You can make a good movie in a year. You can t make a good video game in a year. So it is very difficult for movie and game companies to really work together, especially when you can t even guarantee that the game is going to come out when you say it is going to.”
Source: MCV {link no longer active}
