Resident Evil Leaks Reveal A Fresh Change From The Games

Between the success of Resident Evil Requiem and the fact that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the original game, the Resident Evil franchise is going through a surge of attention from both longtime fans and newcomers seeking to understand the hype. Despite the series’ unfortunate lack of luck in the cinematic arena, there’s a strong possibility that reputation could finally change, as a result of a new reboot arriving later this year. After ascending the ranks of contemporary horror royalty with his first two acclaimed films, Barbarian and Weapons, director Zach Cregger is now turning his attention to Raccoon City.

For the most part the story for Cregger’s reboot has been kept tightly under wraps, with the film’s producer offering up the fact that it will be its own interpretation separate from the canon of the games. Unfortunately, however, that air of mystery may have been shattered recently, as the script for the upcoming film has reportedly leaked online and the reaction from the larger Resident Evil fanbase indicates something unexpected and original (for better and worse), with a crucial change that sets it apart from every other film adaptation and game installment.

The script for Resident Evil leaked on 4chan over the weekend and eventually spread to other corners of the internet, including Reddit and Twitter, and although the first instinct would be to question the authenticity of the document, the fact that it has been scrubbed entirely from the web lends some credence to the possibility that it’s real. Based on the comments and discussions left behind by users and fans who read the script before it was erased, it does seem to line up with some of what has already been known about the film — that it’s set in Raccoon City and follows Austin Abrams as a medical courier named Bryan. After that, the leaks take a pretty radical turn.

Although it should be taken with a grain of salt, a recap synopsis of the script on ResetEra explains that Bryan is delivering what he believes to be vital organs when he gets trapped in Raccoon City, and must find a way out to return home to his pregnant wife. He’s struck by some remarkable bad luck though and gets bitten by an infected dog, turning the entire film into a race-against-time in which Bryan has to figure out how to reverse his T-virus infection.

While there have been many characters across the franchise who have been infected with the T-virus, for the most part the main cast have either been cured or have some sort of immunity that allows them to retain their humanity (frequently with the added benefit of mutations that seem more like superpowers). None of the mainline games have ever given us a first-person perspective on a regular civilian suffering from infection, someone who doesn’t have access to the kinds of resources necessary to stave the virus off. By giving us an original, boots-on-the-ground perspective of the Raccoon City outbreak, Cregger has an opportunity to put his stamp on the series by showing us firsthand what it looks like to slowly succumb to the physical and mental degeneration brought on by the T-virus.

In Weapons, one of the most quietly unsettling parts of the film was watching young Alex’s parents waste away slowly as a result of the spell they’d been put under. Even though the zombie infection in Resident Evil works totally differently, a burgeoning horror auteur like Cregger will most certainly lean into the tragedy and brutality of our main character shifting into something repulsive and monstrous, something not even the games themselves have really committed to doing with a playable character. While some fans are still disappointed the film will focus on an original story, the idea that we could witness the nature of the T-virus through fresh and terrifyingly intimate eyes is just one reason to be excited when Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil finally infects theaters later this year.

Resident Evil is set to release on September 18, 2026.