Taglines: Experimentation… Evolution… Extinction.
Resident Evil: Extinction movie storyline. It’s the end of the world… The experimental T-Virus, concocted by the Umbrella Corporation, has been unleashed on the world, transforming the population into a scourge of shambling zombies with a taste for flesh. With no safety in the cities, Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) and L.J. (Mike Epps), along with new survivors Claire (Ali Larter), K-Mart (Spencer Locke) and Nurse Betty (Ashanti), have gathered a group of survivors and taken to the road… traversing the empty desert highways in an armored convoy. What they seek is more of their kind – the living… the uninfected. What they find is the other constant presence in the desert: the Undead – and they’ll need dozens of guns, thousands of bullets to protect themselves.
Hidden beneath an abandoned Nevada radio tower are the sleek offices and research facilities of the Umbrella Corporation. With access to Umbrella’s constant realtime satellite surveillance, Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) can keep constant tabs on the convoy… but he’s searching for the one person who not only is the key to a cure, but everything Umbrella’s experiments have been leading up to… Alice. Once held captive by the Umbrella Corporation, Alice was subjected to biogenic experimentation that left her genetically altered, giving her superhuman strengths, senses and dexterity.
Mutating by the minute, and under constant threat of betrayal by her own Umbrella-engineered DNA, Alice has been shadowing the convoy, standing by to protect them, hoping to somehow usher them to safety. The convoy decides to head north to Alaska — their last, best hope for refuge from the Undead – but first they will have to make a pit-stop in Las Vegas to refuel… and stay out of Umbrella’s sightlines if they ever hope to reach it. Not only is Umbrella looking for Alice, but she is also looking for them… and she won’t stop until they’re shut down forever. The fight is only just beginning…
Adapting Resident Evil: Extinction
The third and final installment of the $100 million Resident Evil trilogy, Resident Evil: Extinction is again based on the wildly popular video game series. The first film established the world of the Resident Evil film franchise; the second film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, found Alice (Milla Jovovich), L.J. (Mike Epps) and a renegade Umbrella officer named Carlos Olivera escaping Raccoon City and Umbrella’s plot to extinguish them. Resident Evil: Extinction finds them loose in the Las Vegas desert, moving from place to place in an armored convoy, outrunning and outgunning the throngs of Undead that lurk in the wide, empty spaces that can no longer be called civilization.
“I think the strength of the Resident Evil movies is that they’re not just zombie movies,” says writer/producer Paul W.S. Anderson, the creative force behind the Resident Evil trilogy. “There are creatures in these films, more than just the Undead. There are also a lot of science fiction concepts in the movies, as well, so they’re bigger than just a zombie movie.”
Constantin’s Bernd Eichinger, Robert Kulzer and Martin Moszkowicz, who first envisioned the Resident Evil movie franchise, are once again reunited with Davis Films’ Samuel and Victor Hadida and Impact Pictures’ Jeremy Bolt and Paul W.S. Anderson.
“Paul has done something which is very unusual for a genre movie,” says producer Robert Kulzer. “It feels like a very epic movie, with story arcs that go across several movies and combine again and get separated again. All of these characters have taken on lives of their own. He’s so connected with this franchise, and these characters and the world of the game. I think this world really inspires his imagination.”
Taking the director reins this time is Russell Mulcahy, who started his career as a music video director before helming such seminal films as Highlander and its sequel, as well as The Shadow and Ricochet. “For my generation of filmmakers, Highlander was a big thing,” says Anderson. “Russell pioneered a very distinct visual style, a lot of moving camera and crane work, lots of very fast cutting. He’s got a very cool eye and sees great ways to shoot. His work certainly had a big influence on me as a filmmaker and that’s why I was very excited to work with him on this movie.”
“When we had our first meeting with Russell, he literally came in with a book,” recalls Kulzer. “He had storyboarded the entire movie, and he took us through it – shot by shot, scene by scene. We were just blown away by this.”
“Horror films have always been a great passion of mine, so it’s great to get my hands on such a fantastic script,” says Mulcahy. “Visually, Resident Evil: Extinction is different from the previous two films. The first one was quite claustrophobic; the next one was outside on wet night streets, and now, we take them out into the desert. It has a very western feel but is futuristic, crazy and creepy.”
“We took a lot of inspiration from another genre of films that I grew up with, which is the post-apocalyptic movie, of course, Mad Max and The Road Warrior being the best of them,” Anderson adds. “There’s a whole audience of people who don’t know how cool seeing armored trucks blast through these desert landscapes can be.”
Where the first two films unfolded in tight, contained spaces, the third film’s large scale action sequences take place amid post-apocalyptic landscapes in broad daylight. “What’s terrifying is not necessarily that which goes bump in the night, but that which whispers at mid-day,” says Mulcahy. “In some ways it’s even more terrifying. We do have our dark, spooky scenes, but we have a wonderful visual contrast of this blasted sand and stormy desert landscape, such as Las Vegas covered in sand. And then you go underground to the Umbrella Corporation, which is all blue and cold and steel. It’s quite a refreshing and surprising look, a very visceral look, without taking away any elements of the game, which is very important. We’ve been very adamant about keeping true to the spirit of the game.”
As with the previous Resident Evil films, Extinction resonates with the contemporary zeitgeist. “In this movie it’s very much about the shortage of oil, the shortage of supplies, and how the desert has taken over civilized land,” notes Kulzer. “Even though it’s a science fiction action film, there are nuances about it that reflect the world we know, the one we live in right now.”
Resident Evil: Extinction is an original story, but one that unfolds in a world that fans of the game will recognize. “It’s all part of trying to deliver a movie going experience that satisfies the fans of the game but also provides a fun cinematic experience for a broader audience that has never played a Resident Evil game,” says Anderson.
At the heart of the terror in Resident Evil are the ever-present zombies unleashed through T-Virus mutation. While the concept of the Undead remains the same, the stakes have once again been raised. “The game has progressed and broadened out, and we thought we should change as well,” explains Anderson. “So, we’ve introduced the Super Undead, which are a result of Umbrella experimenting with the Undead and attempting to give them back some of their reasoning power, some of their intelligence and a little of their humanity. Unfortunately, these experiments don’t quite work and the side effect is the Super Undead, which are Undead that are faster, stronger and more cunning… a really fearsome foe.”
But mindless flesh-eaters aren’t the only predators the characters have to fend off. “We’ve also included the Tyrant, which is a big favorite of a lot of fans of the game,” says Anderson. “It’s certainly one of my favorite creatures from the game. And we’ve brought back some old favorites, like the dogs. We’re using the crows properly for the very first time – there’s an amazing sequence that has these mutated crows in it.”
While sticking to the spirit of the games, Anderson has injected the story with fresh concepts and Mulcahy has brought the whole enterprise into the light. “To simply copy the games would not be a good movie going experience because you would know exactly what’s going to happen and which characters would live and die,” Anderson notes. “That’s one of the big challenges: to stay true to the games but also break the rules a little bit.”
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Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Directed by: Russell Mulcahy
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Oded Fehr, Ali Larter, Iain Glen, Ashanti, Christopher Egan, Spencer Locke, Matthew Marsden, Linden Ashby, Jason O’Mara, Mike Epps, John Eric Bentley
Screenplay by: Paul W. S. Anderson
Production Design by: Eugenio Caballero
Cinematography by: David Johnson
Film Editing by: Niven Howie
Costume Design by: Joseph A. Porro
Set Decoration by: Barbara Enriquez
Art Direction by: Marco Niro
Music by: Charlie Clouser
MPAA Rating: R for strong horror violence throughout and some nudity.
Distributed by: Sony ScreenGems
Release Date: September 21, 2007
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