Writer Paul W. S. Anderson finishes off the Resident Evil franchise with Resident Evil: Extinction starring Milla Jovovich. Anderson wrote, produced and directed the first Resident Evil film and then turned over the directing job to others for Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Extinction. But the franchise has remained close to his heart. Hoping to go out with a bang, the third film finds Jovovich joining up with returning cast members Oded Fehr and Mike Epps, as well as a batch of Resident Evil newcomers, to try and eliminate the deadly virus unleashed by the Umbrella Corporation.
Is Part Three something you conceived while working on Part Two?
“It was something I thought about when we were doing Part One, actually, because the first movie was conceived as the prequel to the world of the videogames. I thought as we were shooting the first one that we’re having so much fun doing it, I thought it would be great to do a trilogy where the first one was the prequel to the world of the games, the second one took place during the world of the games and actually tied into the storyline of one of the specific games, and the third one was kind of like a postscript to the world of the games. I was playing the games when I first got involved in Resident Evil, you know, the Umbrella Corporation was trying to contain an increasingly bigger infection that got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And obviously the end result of that, the inevitable result of that is that they can’t contain the infection. It gets out and the world is devastated, and what are the ramifications of that? That was very much what we thought the third movie should be.”
The trailers show Las Vegas buried under the sand. How does that happen?
“Well there were two reasons why Las Vegas is buried in the sand. One of the ideas in the movie is that the T-Virus doesn’t just affect humans and animals, it actually f**ks up whole eco-systems as well. It’s kind of like as well as messing with life on earth, it messes with the flora and the fauna. It destroys ecosystems so forests die. Rivers and lakes dry up; corn fields turn into deserts.
But the idea of Vegas buried in the sand came from a trip I took there about six years ago where there was a sandstorm. And I got to tell you, there was a lot of sand. I was in Vegas and you could see the sand was literally piling up along [the road and] behind the buildings. It gave me the idea that if there was nobody in Las Vegas and you turned off the water, first all the plant life would immediately die without water in two weeks. But if you left Vegas for like two or three years, it would be buried in sand because the morning after, people were clearing this stuff out. There’s a whole industry in Vegas just to keep the sand out. If you stop doing that stuff, then pretty much the imagery you see in the movie would be the imagery you would see.”
How difficult was it after the first two films to top it with a third and make sure you’re satisfying the fans?
“Well we did two things. One is we brought Patrick [Tatopoulos] in to do the creatures because I thought we needed bigger and better and improved creatures, especially zombies, in this movie. I was kind of a little disappointed by the look of the zombies in the second film and I wanted them to have a really kick-ass look. I think Patrick delivered that for us.
The other was, you know, when we made Resident Evil the first movie, no one had made a proper zombie film in about 20 years. We were the first, but since then there have been a whole slew of undead movies and there’s a whole bunch of imagery that’s become very, very familiar: a city, be it American or British, overrun with undead. We did it in Resident Evil: Apocalypse and I thought the way we could top that with this movie was to choose a completely fresh landscape. So the idea was we took the movie into the desert because it’s the least populated part of America. It’s like if it’s a world run over with the undead, the last thing you want to do is be in the center of the populace where there are tens of thousands of undead. You want to keep on the move so they’re not drawn to the scent, because they’re slow and you can be fast as long as you find the gas to keep your convoy moving.
We took the movie out into the desert and I think completely changed the look of the film. I think it’s one of the exciting things about the trailer and why we’ve had such cool response to this. People have been really excited about it [because] it’s just brand new imagery, and very exciting imagery.
It’s great for the cast, as well, because they all got to wear skimpy clothes, really kind of sexy… It’s just a whole new vibe. I think our generation of filmmakers were very influenced by The Road Warrior and that post-apocalyptic imagery. This movie is definitely influenced by that. We tried to kind of give a Road Warrior-esque vibe, an end of the world vibe. Because, again, while undead movies have become quite popular in the last few years, the apocalyptic movie, which again was a big genre when I was first starting to get into the cinema, no one’s done that. I think hopefully we’re just ahead of the curve, just as we were when we made the first Resident Evil. We were the first zombie movie and now we’re the first kind of apocalyptic movie.”
What was it you weren’t happy about with the zombies in the second film?
“I thought they didn’t really progress the look of the first one. In the first movie, they had a very specific look, which was these people had only been dead for 12 hours so it’s just the early part of mortification that you’re seeing. There were a few that had died in particularly spectacular ways but other than that, they were f**ked up human beings. The second movie I don’t think expanded on that look. It treaded water a little bit. While I liked the second movie and it certainly did very, very well, I think the second movie was a treading water exercise a little bit. That’s why on the third movie we all pulled our fingers out and tried extra hard. I hope, well, I know we made a much, much better movie than the second film. I think we made a great, great movie and I really liked it a lot.”
Page 2: Resident Evil Video Games and Death Race
