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After debuting behind closed doors at CinemaCon, the first trailer for the new Resident Evil movie is finally available to watch online. Directed by Weapons helmer Zach Cregger, the film serves as a reboot to the beloved survival horror franchise, bringing an original story and characters to Raccoon City.
The trailer opens with a man walking through the snow up to a quiet house. He knocks on the door to no answer, and walks inside. "Hello?" he calls out. "I had a little bit of a problem on the road, I was wondering if I could use your phone?"
That man is Bryan, played by Weapons breakout Austin Abrams. Per the movie's official synopsis, he's "a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos." The supporting cast includes Paul Walter Hauser, Kali Reis, and Zach Cherry.
But back to the trailer. "Hey, babe. I'm sorry that we got disconnected earlier, but some things have, uh, happened," Bryan says, once he gets his hands on a phone. "I'm, like, in a seriously messed-up situation right now, and it looks like we might not get to talk to each other again. I just wanted you to know, I love you."
With an eerie dial tone soundtrack in the background, we see Bryan running through the snow to a barn and trying to get some keys off the belt of a corpse... that suddenly moves. In another shot, he falls through a manhole into a sewer, where he's confronted by a bloated corpse, while disembodied limbs jump around of their own accord, and zombies fall from buildings onto the city streets. There's also a particularly creepy sequence in a hospital.
"I never wanted to tell the story of any of the characters from the games," Cregger said in an interview attended by GamesRadar+. "Leon exists in the games. I don't want anyone to ruin that for me. I don't think that me telling a story that's not about Leon is a violation of the Resident Evil world, because the games do that all the time. Leon's not in 7 or 8. So I figure if I am honoring the games, I'm just going to tell another story that feels like playing in the world of the game, but I'm not stepping on the toes of any of Leon's storyline. I'm not recasting Leon, god forbid. You know, I'm letting Leon stay Leon. And I feel like that's the most respectful thing I could do."
Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other biggest upcoming video game movies on the way in 2026 and beyond.
