After a theatrical release in November, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City comes home in February. It will be available to purchase digitally on Jan. 18 followed by its release on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Feb. 8. The 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray include over 20 minutes of all-new featurettes, exploring the characters, creatures, and creepy locations of Raccoon City as well as the process of adapting the first two games of the massively popular video game franchise for the big screen.
Written and directed by Johannes Roberts, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City reboots the movie series from scratch with a new take more reminiscent of the original video games. The synopsis reads: “Raccoon City, which was once a booming home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation, is now a dying Midwestern town. The company’s exodus left the city a wasteland…with great evil brewing below the surface. When that evil is unleashed, a group of survivors must work together to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night.”
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Robert Kulzer, James Harris, and Hartley Gorenstein produced. Executive producers include Martin Moszkowicz, Victor Hadida, Jeremy Bolt, and Paul W.S. Anderson. The film stars Kaya Scodelario as Claire Redfield, Hannah John-Kamen as Jill Valentine, Robbie Amell as Chris Redfield, Tom Hopper as Albert Wesker, Avan Jogia as Leon Kennedy, Donal Logue as Brian Irons, and Neal McDonough as William Birkin.
Sony
Sony will also release a limited edition 4K steelbook. This will be available at major retailers while supplies last and it includes five collectible poster cards featuring incredible original artwork from winners of a worldwide fan art contest. The bonus materials include three all-new featurettes: “Replicating the DNA,” “Cops, Corpses and Chaos,” and “Zombies, Lickers and the Horrors of Resident Evil.”
Johannes Roberts took a much different approach to adapting the Resident Evil games compared to the previous movies starring Milla Jovovich. The idea was to have a film much more closely resembling the original video games, bringing in elements and characters from Resident Evil 1 & 2. Roberts also went so far as to have the actual blueprints for different locations from the games sent to him from Capcom so the sets could be built looking exactly as they appeared in the source material. The response has been mixed, so it’s unclear if there will be any sequels at this time. It might depend upon how well the home video sales perform before those decisions are made.
“I could very much see [Resident Evil 4] becoming part of the next installment,” Roberts said of a possible sequel, via GamesRadar. “There’s a lot of interesting lore and tiny details that we have brought into this movie, but would be amazing to expand on. There are characters that we didn’t use in this game that we would love to expand upon in the next movie. There’s also a different side of Resident Evil with Village and Resident Evil 7, where it’s a much darker, more horrific world.”
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City will be available digitally on Jan. 18. The film then comes to 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Feb. 8.
