Rue Morgue spoke to Resident Evil: Afterlife producer Jeremy Bolt on the Toronto set last December. The full article is available in Issue #104 (available on newsstands now) but here is more from Bolt on working on 3D, the power of the RE franchise, and whether we can expect a fifth film:
On the new zombies:
“We’ve evolved the undead in ways that exploit what 3D can give to us, and this makes them harder to kill than they’ve ever been. So Alice and her team have some very worthy opponents in this film. Not just senior executives of the Umbrella Corporation, but we also have some 3D-friendly creatures. 3D but not human-friendly creatures.”
On why Afterlife is more than just a zombie movie:
“We’ve really tried to develop a central conflict between the individual character, Alice, and the corporate world which is deciding our fate without consulting us, and I think that’s at the centre of it, and I think that’s a very relatable characteristic of everyone’s condition. Whether it’s Rupert Murdoch or Microsoft, you can easily see how the Umbrella Corporation could occur, and Alice is the individual, and she’s taking them on. And in doing so she’s really the only hope for humanity.
“So that makes us more than just an undead movie or a zombie movie. I think it’s disastrous as a genre filmmaker to not attempt to bring in some higher goal with your film these days. You just find it boring without that.”
On having Paul back as director:
“Obviously it’s hugely beneficial to have Paul, who’s the creator of the franchise, direct again, because it means everyone’s more confident, the actors relax, and you really feel the franchise is going to step forward.
At the Tokyo premiere
On the games vs. the movies:
“As pieces of entertainment, they are separate entities. Obviously they have characters in common. I think Paul and I would love to see more of a symbiosis, and I think that would be my dream if we ever got to make another one. But now the game is doing very well, which clearly we’ve contributed to, and the film is doing well, which they’ve contributed to. So there’s a respect between us and Capcom.
“The motherload for filmmakers like us is a movie which is absolutely connected to a game, and that they’re both things that release simultaneously, and you have to play one to fully appreciate the other and watch one to fully appreciate the game. That would be awesome.”
On the power of film franchises:
“The trend is now brands, and within the umbrella of the brand, the filmmaker has to get creative. Stand-alone projects which aren’t based on anything, good luck! It just isn’t the way the business is going. When we first started doing Resident Evil, it was definitely looked down upon. Now people say it’s phenomenal to have this because it’s a huge brand, and we can do so many things with it. It’s not just a horror movie, it’s not just a zombie movie.”
On a fifth RE film:
“If we do $160 million worldwide [the third film, 2007’s Resident Evil: Extinction, made $150 million], I’m sure there’ll be a discussion about another one. In the Hollywood scheme of things, those are not enormous numbers, but relative to what we spend on them, that’s a very profitable business.”
On game fans disliking the films:
“They’re going to crucify us whatever happens. It’s a form of affection, I like to think.”
On working in 3D:
“One of the biggest challenges in 3D, traditional horror techniques, which often rely on hiding things from the audience, they don’t work in 3D because in 3D you see nearly everything. So you have to re-conceive jumps and how you build suspense. Resident Evil has the advantage in that it’s an action horror; there’s always been a large action component, which is pretty amazing in 3D, although the action has to be very choreographed, almost like ballet because you can’t do fast cutting because the eye… you get very dizzy. So it’s more a return to old school filmmaking where there are much longer takes.
“This is kind of the anti-Michael Baby approach. There’s no moving camera; that doesn’t work in 3D. Like Paul [W.S. Anderson, director] says, it’s how you imagine David Lean or Alfred Hitchcock went to work. They had this storyboard and they shot it, and that was it, which as a producer is a little frustrating because it means you’re only going to have maybe two options when you’re in the cutting room, and when you have loads of coverage obviously there are multiple ways to cut a scene.
“I’m very excited about the 3D element but I’m also a little unsure about how it’s going to turn out in terms of how the audience will respond. I think it’ll be stunningly beautiful and look incredible, but like I said, the pace, the suspense, the action, the horror beats, these are all things that we’ll figure out in the cutting room.
“Because the experience is so immersive, if it’s skilfully put together, if you suddenly swish-pan to something there, you’ll get a massive jump because it’s literally like the thing is coming out of the screen. So there are things like that that can work well for horror. But suspense, that’s going to be very reliant on sound and music.”
On upping their game for the fourth film with 3D:
“We have been very conscious, being commercial filmgoers who see a lot of the franchised movies – Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men – that the successful ones always give something different to the audience for the next instalment, and the unsuccessful ones, you feel like you’re just seeing the same thing again. So with the Resident Evil films we’ve always tried to give a different environment, maybe a different character from the game.”
