The most terrifying zombie creature in the Resident Evil movie was actually performed by real stunt people, a new video has shown.

In the film, a horrifying amalgamation of all the zombified victims so far chases Austin Abrams's Bryan around on his quest to reach the Raccoon City hospital. It rolls around in a tangle of limbs, and it pursues Bryan all the way to the end.

The film's movement coordinator, Jakub Hudlický, shared a video to his Instagram of the performers tied together and producing the creature's creepy rolling motion.

"Let’s take it all the way back to the beginning – July '25 – when @filmka_stunt_team, @cirk_la_putyka and I first came together to explore one big question: how can the Merged Monster moooove?" he wrote in the caption to the post.

Now, it's not totally clear if the final version we see in the movie is performed practically, or if this was just a test for VFX reference. Still, it's very impressive.

The zombie monster can't actually be found in any of the Resident Evil games, fitting with Zach Cregger's assertion before the film was released that it would not be directly adapting the games but rather be inspired by them. The movie takes place "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2.

The Resident Evil movie has been incredibly well received, scoring 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Our own Resident Evil movie review awards the film 4 stars, and it reads: "Frightening, funny and exceedingly bloody, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil is a horror-comedy to match the best the genre has to offer, and an easy frontrunner for the best video game movie to date. Cregger's hot streak continues."

You can watch Resident Evil in theaters now. For more, check out our guide to the Resident Evil movie ending explained.

In case you haven't heard, the Resident Evil movie rocks. Zach Cregger's singular adaptation of the beloved Capcom video games is a 95-minute shot of t-Virus adrenaline that does a better job of adapting the series to film than any of the previous seven movies, despite telling an original story and failing to include a single game character.

This caused something of a backlash ahead of release, leading Cregger to embark on a self-professed "apology tour" during interviews. But I'm here to tell you all that Cregger was right: more filmmakers need to be brave enough to tell their own stories when adapting video games, and stay true to the source material in other ways, even if it means leaving fan-favorite figures behind.

Despite taking place "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2, on the day of the t-Virus outbreak, Cregger's Resident Evil movie doesn't feature the iconic likes of Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, Nemesis or any of the myriad characters and monsters we know are running around the streets of Raccoon City at this exact time. Instead, it focuses on medical courier Bryan, an average Joe who's comically out of his depth when faced with seemingly unkillable zombies and even gnarlier mutated creatures. His simple goal: to get the basis of an antidote for the infection from A to B.

The movie's only acknowledgement of Resident Evil's outrageously convoluted lore is a brief moment of exposition revealing that (who else but) the Umbrella Corporation is behind the t-Virus outbreak. This side of Resident Evil, along with the well-explored characters, evidently wasn't of interest to Cregger.

And who can blame him – we had six Milla Jovovich-led movies featuring cosplay versions of familiar Resident Evil figures in daft fan-fiction scenarios that sort of looked a bit like the games if you squinted. These movies were at least fun, which can't really be said about the disastrous 2021 movie Welcome to Raccoon City – an adaptation so misguided in its efforts to please fans that it featured originally cut character Lisa Trevor, but was somehow the worst of the lot.

Instead, Cregger, a clearly passionate Resident Evil fan who also happens to be one of the most accomplished and exciting contemporary filmmakers, has adapted Resident Evil in the ways that matter: translating the tone, atmosphere, structure, absurdity, and the you-know-it-if-you-see-it feel of the games to film in a way that feels practically groundbreaking.

Lone survivor

Everyman Bryan might be a new kind of protagonist for a Resident Evil story (more akin to Ethan at the start of 7 than one-man-army Leon), but the idea of following a single isolated character through a nightmare gauntlet is standard operating procedure for the series. No time for idle chit-chat when you've got mutated beasties to kill and arcane sub-objectives to complete.

There's also the undeniable fact that most of the games simply aren't suited for a 1:1 translation to film. Resident Evil 2 might be an all-time classic, but Leon or Claire running laps around the RPD building to stay out of Mr. X's reach is unlikely to lend itself to compelling cinema. And the less said about the B-movie stories and dialogue, the better.

Despite his passion for the series, Cregger is smart enough to know that if you want to experience Resident Evil 4, the best way to do that will always be to play the game. This has long been the case for video game adaptations – particularly on the big screen – which have typically loosely adapted the stories and the characters out of necessity in a way that satisfies no one. Beyond a handful of specific examples – The Last of Us on TV among them – that truly lend themselves to faithful adaptation, it's almost always going to be the case that using the worlds as a jumping-off point for new stories, while honoring the ethos of the games, will yield more satisfying results for fans and newcomers.

We're living through the golden age of video game adaptations, akin to the position superhero cinema was in around the early days of the MCU. And just like superhero cinema was no longer treated purely as disposable kids' fare by a generation of filmmakers who grew up reading comics, as a generation of filmmakers who grew up playing video games move into positions of power in Hollywood, the approach to adapting them has become increasingly sophisticated. There have already been a number of successful examples on TV, including Fallout and Arcane, neither of which adapts specific stories from the games, but still manage to stay true to their respective worlds. Resident Evil is the first true success story on film, at least one put out by a major studio.

Of course, there are examples of this approach not working out in the past. 2016's Assassin's Creed, starring Michael Fassbender, wasn't a million miles away from Cregger's Resident Evil in its use of a new cast of characters in a familiar setting and scenario. But without casting aspersions, it's fair to say that Assassin's Creed director Justin Kurzel – the extremely accomplished filmmaker behind the likes of Snowtown and The True History of the Kelly Gang – probably didn't understand Assassin's Creed in the same way that Cregger does Resident Evil, and it showed.

A new way forward

The discourse around Resident Evil has been a bummer to see as a long-serving fan of the games and an equally big fan of Cregger. Here, at long last, a series as storied and full of potential as Resident Evil has enlisted a filmmaker with the vision and talent to craft something that lives up to the legacy of the games – which he accomplished and then some – and the instinct of many is to tear the movie down because it isn't a 1:1 translation. I, for one, don't want to see the same thing again, simply in live action; that experience is open to me again anytime by booting up my PlayStation. I'll always opt for something new, as long as it feels true to the world it's bringing to the screen.

It's too early to say whether or not filmmakers will learn the lessons of Cregger's Resident Evil. We've yet to get a proper glimpse of Wes Ball's The Legend of Zelda movie, though given comments from Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto recently that the movie would be inspired by the history of the whole series, and some sneaky set photos that appear to feature a mix of costumes from different eras, I'll be surprised if it's a faithful rendering of a specific entry. Better it captures the spirit of the series first and foremost, followed by any specifics which support that.

As for Resident Evil, despite saying he's had ideas for a sequel, it doesn't seem all that likely Cregger will return – and who can blame him. While many consider the ending abrupt, you can't deny that it closes the loop on Bryan as a character, and serves as a tragic origin story for a hulking Raccoon City sub-boss; you could almost imagine Leon stumbling across his voice message for Michelle in Raccoon City General Hospital's subterranean car park before going on to take him out with a few well-placed magnum shots to that bulging eye. As far as adapting a video game goes, Cregger has achieved an easy S+ rank.

Resident Evil is out now. For more, check out our ranking of the best Resident Evil movies and our spoiler-filled Resident Evil movie ending explained.

Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil movie is the latest project to come under fire for allegedly using AI in its early stages of development. However, storyboard artist Simeon Wilkins has come forward to set the record straight.

"A small sampling of the storyboard work I did with Zach for Resident Evil. Not an ounce of AI here- all hand-drawn!," said Wilkins on Twitter, sharing a snippet of early drawings for the new video game movie. Check out the post below.

Rumors started to swirl after a bunch of Resident Evil storyboards made their way online, and some moviegoers, not familiar with storyboard art style, suspected AI was used.

Cregger's Resident Evil has proven to be a great hit with fans, scoring an impressive 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and earning $100 million internationally over opening weekend. In our Resident Evil review, we call the new horror movie "Frightening, funny and exceedingly bloody," and "an easy frontrunner for the best video game movie to date."

The film stars Austin Abrams as Bryan, a medical courier who is asked to deliver a package to Raccoon City General Hospital. However, when he sets off on his last job of the night, he unknowingly walks into an all-out zombie apocalypse. The film doesn't adapt a particular Resident Evil game, but is set at the same time as Resident Evil 2.

However, the AI scandal isn't the first time fans have questioned Cregger's take. Upon learning that the film would follow a new protagonist, many fans were angry that Resident Evil frontrunner Leon has been cut out. But Cregger has proven time and time again that he is an avid gamer and lover of the games, and has taken inspiration from the whole franchise.

If you ask us, making a video game movie that adds to the lore rather than simply replicates it is way more exciting. The proof is in the pudding. Just see where the new movie places in our ranking of the best Resident Evil movies.

Resident Evil is in theaters now. For more, check out our and our Resident Evil movie ending explained, and keep up with new video game movies on the way.

Self-proclaimed gamer Zach Cregger has not only managed to produce one of the best video game movies of all time with his new Resident Evil movie, but he has also had the chance to share his love for games in the process. The director was recently put on the spot and asked to do what all gamers fear most: list his top games of all time.

When asked to list his top four games in an interview with Regal Movies, Cregger said, "Off the top of my head: Binding of Issac, Dark Souls 3, I would say Resident Evil 4, and, God, my last one? This is brutal. The Last of Us 2." It's an impossible task, but the horror helmer sure does have great taste. Here are Cregger's top four games:

• The Binding of Issac
• Dark Souls 3
• Resident Evil 4
• The Last of Us Part II

It is not surprising that Resident Evil 4 made it on the list, as Cregger has said that his new adaptation draws a lot of inspiration from the fourth game. All of the games on Cregger's list are well loved, but what is interesting is that all but The Last of Us Part II have yet to be adapted into movies or TV shows. Might a Dark Souls movie be in Cregger's future? We will have to wait and see.

When asked if he gave Resident Evil star Austin Abrams any gaming homework, Cregger said he told the actor to play Resident Evil 2, 4, and 7. We already knew that the movie is set parallel to Resident Evil 2. The movie even includes a Resident Evil 4 Easter egg. Plus, during a Resident Evil Reddit AMA, Cregger said he used the "character elements" from the seventh game in the film.

Despite Cregger proving his gamer status time and time again, some fans are still a little salty about the new movie not adapting any specific game and choosing to introduce a new protagonist, leaving Resident Evil frontrunner Leon out. The movie follows Abram's medical courier named Bryan, who must deliver a package to Raccoon City General Hospital right at the end of his shift. But unbeknownst to him, a zombie apocalypse has just broken out.

However, Cregger pulled details from the whole franchise. "The visual language is taken from the games," added Cregger. "This movie lives in the third-person, kind of over-the-shoulder shot for most of its runtime, and it jumps to first person a lot. I feel like I have yet to see a movie that really leans into the video game visual vocabulary, the way this movie has."

Resident Evil is in theaters now. For more, check out our Resident Evil review, our Resident Evil movie ending explained, and our list of the best Resident Evil movies.

Resident Evil is in theaters now. For more, see where Resident Evil ranks on our lists of the best Resident Evil movies (spoiler: it ranks high).

Zach Cregger says the 2019 Oscar-nominated war movie 1917 was an unlikely inspiration for his take on Resident Evil.

"1917. But like it's completely different in tone. But that is structurally maybe the closest," Cregger told Rotten Tomatoes, when asked if any movies specifically inspired Resident Evil. "It's like if Evil Dead 2 and 1917 were its parents, but that doesn't feel right... like if those movies loved each other very much."

Written and directed by Sam Mendes, 1917 follows two British soldiers in World War I who set off on a mission to deliver an important message that will call off a fatal attack. The film earned ncluding ten nominations at the 92nd Academy Awards, ultimately taking home Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects.

Though Evil Dead 2 might make a bit more sense, 1917 does make sense as structural inspiration for Resident Evil. It's a man on a mission who moves through impossible circumstances with one goal in mind – and the concept of survival gets put on the back burner.

The new movie tells a new story within the world of Resident Evil, following a slightly miserable medical courier who agrees to take a mysterious package all the way over to Raccoon City... where, unbeknownst to him, a lab-created virus has just begun to destroy humanity. Cregger directs from a screenplay he penned wth Shay Hatten. It's also some of the most fun I've had in a theater in a really long time.

Resident Evil is in theaters now. For more, check out our handy list of all the Resident Evil Easter eggs we spotted during the film, or, check out our guide on how Resident Evil connects to the games.

Monster Hunter series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto says there's still an appetite at Capcom to make another live-action movie after 2020's Paul W.S. Anderson-directed box office bomb.

"Speaking as producer and also as overall series producer in the past, I'm definitely interested in the idea of revisiting a Monster Hunter movie if the stars align in future," Tsujimoto told Postmode.

But, of course, we need to talk about the Gammoth in the room: 2020's Monster Hunter, to put it mildly, was not a success.

Yes, its low box office (under $50 million) can be partly attributed to a cinematic landscape emerging from the after-effects of COVID-mandated shutdowns, but a 45% score on Rotten Tomatoes and scathing reappraisals in the years since has done nothing to help Monster Hunter's cause. Hot off the heels of Zach Cregger's Resident Evil – an adaptation of another beloved Capcom property – it only holds up worse.

Still, that hasn't deterred Tsujimoto, nor the wider Capcom shot-callers.

"Capcom as a whole, not just Monster Hunter, has said publicly that it's putting real effort into film and visual media," Tsujimoto underlined. "Within that, we're of course very interested in Monster Hunter on screen and want to do it in the future. But it's not something we can do on our own."

There, then, is the rub. Much like Monster Hunter's beastie-thwacking gameplay, it requires a team effort to get the job done. To that end, Tsujimoto seemingly requires a certain set of conditions to be met before trying again.

"It depends on the companies involved, on a director, on timing," Tsujimoto said. "And we'd need to think hard about what we want to depict. The desire is there, but it happens when the timing and those things line up. We want to do it in the future."

Elsewhere, Monster Hunter Wilds is receiving a new expansion, titled Ascendance. It promises new gear, new locations and – of course – new monsters to hunt. It's set for release on PC, Xbox Series X, and PS5 next year.

For more, check out the new PS5 games and upcoming Xbox Series X games in the works, then cast an eye towards the upcoming video game movies that are on the way soon.

The Silent Hill movie franchise has yet to live up to the video game series' success, but that could change soon as a new string of Silent Hill films are reportedly on the way.

According to Dread Central, the Silent Hill movie franchise is getting a fresh start that will be a "bold new take on the franchise."

The first Silent Hill movie adaptation hit screens in 2006 and still holds up as a pretty solid adaptation – it even places on our list of the best video game movies. The movie, directed by Christophe Gans, follows a mother setting off to Silent Hill in search of her daughter, and brought to life some of our favourite details from the first game.

However, since then, the franchise has taken a dip, with 2012's Silent Hill: Revelation scoring a seriously low 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, and this year's Return to Silent Hill flopping at the box office. But there is so much potential there, with the Silent Hill games being regarded as some of the most atmospheric and downright scary games ever.

The game franchise kicked off in 1999 with Silent Hill, following protagonist Harry Mason as he searches for his missing daughter in a mysterious town with even stranger inhabitants. The series, which has since spanned seven more games and multiple spin-offs, tasks players with solving puzzles, battling creatures, and searching the fog-covered town for answers. The reboot comes at a perfect time, too, as the list of best Silent Hill games is growing, with the new game Silent Hill: Townfall launching on September 24.

The news comes just days after Zach Cregger's daring take on the Resident Evil hit screens, opening to $108 million worldwide, which is more than any past Resident Evil movie made on opening weekend. What is most interesting is that Cregger's take doesn't directly adapt any specific Resident Evil game, but instead tells a new story set in the Resi universe we all know and love.

Seven Resident Evil movies were released between 2002 and 2021. However, the success of Cregger's new movie suggests that video game movie fanatics are hungry for stories that build on games rather than simply adapt them. There are surely countless stories begging to be told in Silent Hill's vast, foggy domain.

For more, read our Resident Evil review and Resident Evil ending explained, and keep up with upcoming video game movies on the way.

Resident Evil took the box office by storm this weekend, raking in over $100 million worldwide at the box office and setting a new benchmark for video game adaptations on the big screen. But great art takes time, and Cregger was working on the movie right up to the wire, which led to some differences between the domestic and international versions of the movie.

Speaking on The Big Picture podcast, Cregger touched on the challenge of shooting Weapons and Resident Evil back-to-back, noting that the acclaimed video game adaptation was finished "maybe" two weeks before release. That's not outside the norm for big movies with a very tight turnaround; let's not forget that Cregger has now released two movies in just over 12 months. What's a little surprising is that the movie missed the international DCP deadline, meaning territories outside America received an incomplete version of the movie.

"It was pencils down at 11:59, Saturday night because the DCP had to ship," Cregger said. "There's actually… the international version is different than the domestic version because I was still needing to make changes and like we missed our international finish line time, you know? So there are shots I'm not stoked on in the international version that like are better in the domestic. That's how down to the wire it was."

Now, we don't know exactly how the international version of the movie differs from the print being screened domestically, but the differences are most likely imperceptible to anyone but Cregger. Visual effects and color grading are two of the more common late-stage post-production processes, and given how VFX heavy Resident Evil gets for its final lab sequence in particular, it's possible a few of these shots are more to Cregger's liking in the domestic DCP.

Imperceptibly incomplete or not, Resident Evil has proved a big hit with audiences and critics (our glowing Resident Evil review is proof of that), even if the discourse around Cregger's approach to adapting the games, and the mic drop Resident Evil movie ending, has reached a fever pitch in recent days. On that ending, Cregger also recently revealed how his original vision for the final sequence changed during production.

"One of the missteps I made early on was not [showing Bryan's desperation for a cure]," Cregger said. "We reorganized the chain of events. Thank god I shot for this as a contingency plan; it was my plan B."

Resident Evil is in theaters now. For more, see where Resident Evil ranks on our lists of the best Resident Evil movies and the best video game movies (spoiler: it ranks high).

A new Street Fighter trailer has arrived, and it gives us an exciting look at all the special fighting moves from the video games that feature in the upcoming movie.

In the brief clip, which you can view above, we see a plethora of moves including Shoryuken, Dhalsim's aerial attack Yoga Mummy, Chun-Li's Hundred Lightning Kicks, Balrog's Buffalo Headbutt, Dragonlash Kick (from Street Fighter 7), and Hundred Hand Slaps. A previous trailer also recreated the loading screen from 1991's Street Fighter 2 and featured directing duo Danny and Michael Philippou as two of the fighters.

The live-action movie, directed by Kitato Sakurai, sees Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken (Noah Centineo) enter the World Warrior Tournament at the insistence of Chun-Li (Callina Liang), who is fixated on taking down the evil M. Bison (David Dastmalchian).

A special event is also being held at participating IMAX theaters on October 15, which allows lucky fans to view the movie one day before release at 7 pm local time. Participants also receive a special print of the film's poster and get to see seven minutes of bonus footage.

The cast includes Cody Rhodes as Guile, Roman Reigns as Akuma, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Balrog, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Orville Peck as Vega, Andrew Schulz as Dan, and Mel Jarnson as Cammy. There is also now a popcorn bucket shaped like Guile's hair, which is brilliant or terrifying depending on how you look at it.

Street Fighter releases in theaters on October 16. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies and our ranking of the best video game movies.

Resident Evil is a certified critical and commercial hit, so much so that it's already out-earned the 2002 movie's entire run.

Per Variety, Zach Cregger's latest horror feature earned $60 million at the domestic box office and $48.3 million at the international box office, making for a total opening weekend of $108.3 million. The first entry in the video game movie franchise, 2002's Resident Evil, earned $26 million in its opening weekend and $102 million in its entire run.

Keep in mind, Cregger's Resident Evil had a budget of just $75 million, and has already earned it back and more in its opening weekend. It's a great time to be a horror fan.

The new movie tells a new story within the world of Resident Evil, rather than adapting a specific installment of the massively popular video games. Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a visibly exhausted, down-on-his-luck medical courier who agrees to take a mysterious green package all the way over to Raccoon City... where, unbeknownst to him, people are mutating left and right. Cregger directs from a screenplay he penned wth Shay Hatten.

The film currently has a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, with our own review calling it the "best video game movie to date." Cregger is on a pretty great run given that Barbarian and Weapons each have a 92% on RT, with the latter earning some Oscar noms and winning one for Amy Madigan's portrayal of villain Aunt Gladys. It's worth noting that Cregger actually made his directorial debut in 2009 alongside late friend and collaborator Trevor Moore (who is given a sweet nod in Weapons), and if horror isn't your thing... why not check out the plucky romcom Miss March?

Resident Evil is in theaters now. For more, check out our handy list of all the Resident Evil Easter eggs we spotted during the film, or, check out our guide on how Resident Evil connects to the games.

Resident Evil director Zach Cregger has revealed that the movie's slightly more hopeful ending wasn't originally on the cards – and was only added in after footage was shot as part of the filmmaker's "contingency plan."

Major spoilers for the Resident Evil movie ending follow.

Poor Bryan. The luckless courier was put through the wringer as he scrambled from undead set-piece to undead set-piece in Cregger's hellish take on Raccoon City.

Partway through the film, Austin Abrams' protagonist is bitten by a child. In Resident Evil's world, that usually only means one outcome. However, by the finale, he makes his way to the Umbrella Corporation lab as the company hunts for a cure to the zombie outbreak.

Sadly for Bryan – and the Umbrella researchers – he doesn't hold off long enough, eventually mutating into a twisted B.O.W. that will be all too familiar to fans of the game.

In the original version of Resident Evil, Cregger (speaking to Collider) explained that Bryan's humanity had completely gone by that point, with no semblance of the person he once was remaining amid a mass of tentacles and gooey eyes, despite Umbrella still trying to inject him with the cure.

"One of the missteps I made early on was not [showing Bryan's desperation for a cure]," Cregger said. "We reorganized the chain of events. Thank god I shot for this as a contingency plan; it was my plan B."

Cregger continued, "Originally in the script, that scientist pulls the needle out, [Bryan] grabs the woman's face, he drops it, and it shatters, and then the rest of the movie is just [Bryan] killing the scientist and people were just like, 'No, it's over!'

"But I shot that shot of the scientist putting the needle in his pocket just 'cause I had a feeling. I was like, 'I feel like I'm going to need that.'"

Cregger's instinct, as to be expected from the mind behind Barbarian and Weapons, was correct.

"It keeps the stakes all the way until the end. It's like 'save him, save him'. Whereas before it's just like: 'Kill them, I guess, kill them all.'"

Resident Evil is now out in cinemas.

For more, check out the collection of Resident Evil Easter eggs we spotted during the runtime, plus a larger look at how Resident Evil connects to the games.

Plus, we glance ahead to all the new horror movies in the works that are getting set to scare us silly.

While the Resident Evil movie focuses on telling a new story set in the world of the franchise, that doesn't mean it isn't stuffed with some neat Resident Evil Easter eggs. It's been well-documented that the film has typewriters, herbs, and first aid spray cans, but there are also a few nods to one of the most well-loved Resi characters, Leon S. Kennedy.

Warning though: we'll be getting into spoilers from the Resident Evil movie below, so make sure you've seen it first.

These come later on in the movie when Bryan, our hapless medical courier, has made it to Raccoon City. Here, he faces the arduous final journey to the hospital to attempt to deliver the sample needed to make the cure.

His first hurdle comes from running down a street as zombies hurl themselves off rooftops towards him. In the background of this shot, as Bryan looks ahead to the hospital, is a shopfront reading 'Leon S. Kennedy Guns and Ammo'. Leon is a rookie cop at this point in the timeline, but he sure does know a few things about guns and ammo, so it's a fun nod from director Zach Cregger. Check out the moment below, as shared by Twitter user RENews from the trailer.

Although, apparently a Deadline journalist asked Cregger about this and he wasn't sure how it ended up in there.

That's not the only reference though, according to some eagle-eyed fans. When Bryan makes it to the hospital, he has to enter through the underground carpark as there are a fair few zombies in the main building. Now some theater-goers spotted that Leon's car is parked among those in the car park where Bryan takes a beat to work out how to complete his journey.

As one fan on Reddit wrote, "I liked that Leon's car was parked in the hospital. It was a cool Easter egg." See if you can spot it on your next rewatch.

For more on the film, check out our breakdown of the Resident Evil movie ending and a breakdown of all the Resident Evil game differences. We've also got a Resident Evil movie review as well if you need any more insight about why it's worth your time.

Across a quarter century and seven live-action movies, Resident Evil has had a rough ride on the big screen. While the Capcom-developed video game series has gone from strength to strength since its 2017 revival, the live-action movies have always been, at best, guilty pleasures and, at worst, affronts to the cherished survival-horror series. Turns out eighth time's a charm, as despite much pre-release griping over the absence of iconic game characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, director Zach Cregger's Resident Evil isn't just the best Resi movie by a distance; it's the best video game movie full stop.

Cregger is a self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan, and among the most exciting filmmakers working today following his arresting debut Barbarian and horror sensation Weapons – a film so undeniable even the horror-averse Academy recognized it with an Oscar for Amy Madigan's Gladys. Cregger's first foray into franchise filmmaking is just as singular and fuelled by invention as his original work, telling a new story in a recognizable world that feels wholly authentic to the spirit and ethos of the games. It's among the more invigorating pieces of IP moviemaking in recent memory, and the first to accurately translate the immersive feeling of playing video games to film.

Clocking in at a refreshingly taut and unrelenting 95 minutes, Resident Evil is stripped back to the point its plot beats could be sketched out on a coaster. Austin Abrams' Bryan is a medical courier about to clock off when he's hired to transport a mysterious biological cargo from the sticks to Raccoon City General Hospital. Unfortunately for Bryan, this happens to be the night of the Raccoon City incident, during which the Umbrella Corporation's DNA-altering t-Virus transforms the population of the city into your garden-variety living dead, and even gnarlier BOWs (Bio-Organic Weapons), which Bryan has to haphazardly fight his way through en route to his final destination.

Don't hate the player

Cregger's movie may take place in parallel with Resident Evil 2, but don't expect any crossover with the games; it's better to think of the movie as a separate and distinct Raccoon City story that is simultaneously taking place on the fringes of what happens to be going on elsewhere in the city. Neither is it totally consistent with established Resi lore: some BOWs exhibit traits of the Las Plagas parasite, for example, which doesn't show up till Resident Evil 4, and the precise way the t-Virus escapes the lab contradicts what we know.

Does any of this matter? Not in the slightest. What matters is that Cregger understands far better than previous stewards of Resident Evil on screen what makes the series tick. Gone is the daft post-Matrix gun-fu; here it's replaced by bullet-counting, resource-scrounging and cautious tiptoeing around dark corners.

Cregger also incorporates the grammar of video games in subtle but effective ways: the camera is frequently hovering over Bryan's shoulder in third-person fashion, he 'upgrades' his firearms across the night, and is constantly coming up against familiar obstacles, like padlocked gates and treacherous ledges that need to be shimmied across.

Bryan, in fact, is a very different protagonist for Resident Evil. While the movies (in Alice) and the games (in Leon, Chris, Claire, and co.) have typically featured very capable leads who take out the undead with ease, Bryan is a doofus with commitment issues whose only experience shooting guns is, amusingly, in video games. This makes every encounter a major life-or-death situation, the movie ramping up the peril with some devilishly effective jump scares and gloriously horrid creature design.

It's scary, no question, but marketing materials to date have majorly undersold how funny Resident Evil is. Despite stripping out many of the jokes after test screening audiences reacted negatively, Resident Evil remains a no-bones horror-comedy where the extremity of the situations Bryan finds himself in elicits nervous laughs and screams in equal measure.

A standout among the Weapons ensemble as addict James, Abrams is at the center of every frame here. The character and performance are reminiscent of Bruce Campbell's slapstick Ash in Evil Dead II, mixing out-of-his-depth everyman with a Wile E. Coyote-style streak of bad luck as the ill-equipped-for-action Bryan screams, panics, and dissociates his way through one hellishly terrible situation after another.

The running joke of the film is that if something can go wrong for poor Bryan, it does, and Cregger seems to take endless pleasure in tormenting his unlikely lead. It can teeter on sadistic, with gruesome moments involving both mutated children and even babies. Somehow, it never feels exploitative. Instead, it adds to the outrageously gonzo, anything-goes nightmare of it all.

Undead nightmare

There are a handful of supporting characters – Paul Walter Hauser, Kali Reis, and Zach Cherry all pop up – but their appearances are so fleeting they barely register as Bryan is pursued across Raccoon City, Nemesis-style, by a relentless multi-limbed monstrosity. It's a movie that doesn't stop for a moment; even the cursory (and mercifully brief) mid-movie exposition dump is delivered on the move. The Fury Road comparisons are apt: Resident Evil is paced to perfection, moving from one environment and grisly encounter to the next at a thrilling clip.

There are some deleterious consequences to this approach. Character development and plot are so bare-bones they're practically non-existent, and don't even think about trying to identify themes. Before it all kicks off, Bryan reacts indecisively to a call from his girlfriend that she may be pregnant, and this regret weighs on him as the film goes on. But this exact character motivation was utilized far more effectively mere months ago in Exit 8, another video game adaptation.

Clearly, Cregger's priority here is experiential. Resident Evil is a gloriously gnarly film. Heads explode (in more ways than one), distended stomachs erupt with rats, and there's a very memorable evolution of the way the t-Virus operates that will no doubt irk die-hard fans. Some may question the choice not to utilize the many iconic creatures we know are roaming the streets of Raccoon City at this time, but Cregger is far more interested in putting his own twist on the world than creating a live-action facsimile. It's arguably the smartest way to approach an adaptation like this when a Last of Us-style faithful rendering doesn't make sense.

Resident Evil might not match Barbarian or Weapons for sheer formal inventiveness, and perhaps won't live as long in the memory as a result. Nor is it likely to replicate Weapons' Awards-season-crashing success. But unless you're a stickler who can't live with the idea of Cregger failing to adhere to the letter of Resident Evil lore, it's hard to imagine anyone with a tolerance for the grisly not having a blast watching this. After 24 years, the big screen finally has a Resident Evil that lives up to the legacy of the games.

Resident Evil releases in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our rankings of the best video game movies, and the best Resident Evil games.

Resident Evil Village's Lady Dimitrescu might not be a character in the new movie from Zach Cregger, but he still has an idea of whom he'd cast as the iconic villain.

Lady Dimitrescu debuted back in the 2021 game that revolves around Ethan Winters, and she quickly took the world by storm.

When asked by Pedestrian TV whom he'd cast, Cregger responded with an excellent pick: Mad Men star Christina Hendricks. "That feels about right to me," he said. The interviewer's choice, meanwhile, was Joan Cusack, to which Cregger responded: "Oh, wow. Okay, great. Dude, I can watch her do anything. Yeah, she's amazing."

Cregger has been clear that his version of Resident Evil won't involve tons of lore from the games or adapt a specific story. In fact, as he told GamesRadar+, the movie takes place "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2. "You know, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel to that," he explained.

First reactions to Cregger's Resident Evil have been overwhelmingly positive, with early viewers saying it "feels like you're playing a very good video game" and it taps into the "relentless tension" of the franchise.

While Cregger hasn't incorporated a lot of game lore, he has indeed said he's trying to capture the feeling of playing the games. "I happen to worship these Resident Evil games and pull a lot of inspiration from the experience of playing them," Cregger teased. "I tried to keep the environment changing every seven or eight minutes, like the games. You're always moving into another level as it were."

Resident Evil arrives on September 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming video game movies and the best Resident Evil games.

Hey hey hey, it's time for Netflix to make some crazy money (as if they don’t have enough already)! Are you ready? Here we go! As part of a major push for more video game adaptations, the streaming service's has partnered with Sega to adapt the publisher's beloved 1999 racing game, which will switch lanes and become a feature film.

To ensure that the level of ridiculousness on the road meets demand, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who wrote The Naked Gun reboot, have been tasked with taking the wheel and penning a script (per Netflix). Neal H. Moritz, Toby Ascher, and Sega’s Toru Nakahara are overseeing things as producers.

The news lines up nicely with the impending arrival of Crazy Taxi: World Tour, which everyone was beeping their horns over until we learned it was set to use generative AI. Like it or not, we're getting a lot more Crazy Taxi than we expected.

But while an audience for Crazy Taxi seems like a sure thing, they’re also gambling on a video game that the world hasn’t gone hands on with yet. Like a Dragon prequel video game, Stranger Than Heaven, is set to arrive next year, and Netflix seems so confident that they’re turning that into a movie as well. Set in Japan across different eras between 1915 and 1965, the game lets players control Makoto Daito, a Japanese-American orphan who ends up in Japan and eventually forms the Tojo Clan.

Strange as it might sound, adapting the game that sees documented cabbies ripping up the streets and running into hot dog vendors might seem easier to adapt than the Like a Dragon prequel, when you consider some of the important pieces involved. The game drew a lot of attention after it was announced that deceased rapper Tupac Shakur, as well as actor Bunta Sugawara, who died in 2014, would be included as integral characters. Putting characters that look like famous dead people is one thing, but it begs the question of how they’ll be integrated into whatever live-action plans they have in place.

Finally, the last project coming down the pipeline is a new Sonic the Hedgehog animated kids series, which honestly sounds like the easiest project of the bunch. Discussing the upcoming entries, Sega’s head producer said, "Expect something cute yet cool for Sonic, hilariously crazy for Crazy Taxi and a badass action drama for Stranger Than Heaven, because we’ve got some amazing creative ideas lined up and we are just getting started. The whole team is absolutely thrilled!"

The Crazy Taxi and Stranger Than Heaven movies are currently undated. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies.

New details for the upcoming The Legend of Zelda movie have been revealed, and they're pretty intriguing. While we didn't get a trailer for the new film during The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct, Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto did reveal some interesting teases.

"The title is The Legend of Zelda," he explained. "Once you see the film, you'll understand why there isn't a subtitle. This is an original film based on the many stories, ideas, and concepts of the series, built up through the games over 40 years." He also teased that the Triforce will play a part in the new movie.

Directed by Wes Ball, the adaptation stars House of the Dragon's Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Link and Renegade Nell's Bo Bragason as Zelda. It also stars Uli Latukefu as Ganondorf, Dichen Lachman as Impa, and Yvonne Strahovski as "a Queen character".

Speaking earlier this year to GamesRadar+, Ainsworth revealed he was a bit too young to play Breath of the Wild, possibly the best Zelda game of all time, when it was released in 2011, but he did watch a lot of playthroughs.

"Then, upon being fortunate enough to play this role, such an iconic character, going back and realizing the 40 years of legacy and history, and the varied tones, the varied stories, the varied renditions and vocal performances of this character as well," he explained of his preparation. "Yeah, I'm a big fan, and just really excited, because it was an awesome thing to shoot."

The Legend of Zelda movie is set to hit theaters worldwide on April 30, 2027. For more game-to-film adaptations, here's our guide to all the video game movies you need to know about.

A new Street Fighter trailer has arrived, and while it's a bit less action-comedy in tone than the first, it sure as heck brings the drama and some of the coolest fighting moves from the video games to life.

The brief clip, which can be viewed above, leans heavily into Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken's (Noah Centineo) tumultuous relationship and begins with an all-out fight. It's Chun-Li (Callina Liang) who encourages Ryu to enter the World Warrior Tournament, and it's all with the intent of taking down the impossibly evil M. Bison (David Dastmalchian). There's also a pretty cool part where E. Honda (Hirooki Goto) does basically every single one of his video game moves in a 10-second span after we saw Ryu do his signature fireball move in the first trailer.

Per the official logline, behind the World Warrior Tournament lies a conspiracy forcing Ryu and Ken to take on both each other and the demons of their past. Kitao Sakurai directs from a screenplay penned by T. J. Fixman and Sakurai himself, with a story by Gary Dauberman and Dalan Musson.

The cast includes Cody Rhodes as Guile, Roman Reigns as Akuma, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Balrog, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Orville Peck as Vega, Andrew Schulz as Dan, and Mel Jarnson as Cammy. Danny and Michael Philippou, who were initially signed on to direct, also have a pretty cool cameo.

Street Fighter releases in theaters on October 16. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies and our ranking of the best video game movies.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie has been (unfairly) divisive for its creative deviations from Resident Evil canon, and for telling a Resident Evil story without fan-favorite characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Nevertheless, it's set to open huge later this month, and could potentially double the opening weekend box office takings of the biggest Resident Evil movie to date.

Early tracking (h/t IGN) has put Resident Evil's opening weekend figure at some $40-50 million in the US. Even at the lower end of predictions, that's far higher than any movie in the Milla Jovovich-starring series, the biggest of which, Resident Evil: Afterlife, opened to $26.6 million in 2010. The most recent Resident Evil movie, Welcome to Raccoon City, opened to just over $5 million in November 2021. Even factoring in that more faithful adaptation's pandemic-era handicap, this is a big improvement.

Cregger's Resident Evil movie seems to be resonating for a few reasons. The fact that it's telling an original story that anyone can jump into is certainly one. Cregger himself is becoming something of an event filmmaker after his original horror-thriller Weapons opened to a massive $43 million last summer. And the self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan seems to have learnt all the right lessons about video game adaptations, in that he's staying true to the "spirit and tone" of the games (and even the power progression) rather than simply re-telling one of the games' stories on screen.

Even a bumper box office is unlikely to result in more Resident Evil movies from Cregger, however, as the writer-director is set to helm original sci-fi The Flood next. He's also penning Weapons prequel, Gladys, centred on that movie's twiggy witch, and he's reportedly scripting a Siren Head movie for director Brian Duffield. So Cregger is booked for years to come. But given how lucrative adaptations of the Resident Evil series have proven to be over the years (some seven live-action movies and an ill-fated Netflix TV show have been made to date), it's unlikely to be the last.

Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as a medical courier tasked with transporting biological materials across a zombie-infected Raccoon City. Late last year, we visited the Resident Evil set in Prague, where Cregger, Abrams and the team took us through their full-throttle vision for the movie.

Resident Evil opens on September 18. For more scares, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies and our list of all the new video game adaptations on the way in 2026 and beyond.

The Last of Us TV show wasn't the first announced adaptation of the beloved Naughty Dog game. Spider-Man and Evil Dead director Sam Raimi was originally in talks to produce a movie back in 2014, and there was even a poster made for a San Diego Comic-Con panel.

You can check out the first poster image below, which was shared by Sony at the time. It featured what seems to be a slightly older version of Ellie holding a knife and wearing her signature backpack.

Now the poster has resurfaced, fans have been reacting to it on social media. "I remember being so excited for this all those years ago. Imagine if this got made," one wrote, while another added: "Is this an alternate reality? Since when did this exist?"

Appearing at San Diego Comic-Con in 2014, Raimi told crowds (per Empire): "I think it’s going to be a great character journey and a great love story and a really great horror picture." He also revealed that they had met with Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams to play Ellie.

The movie was due to be written by Neil Druckmann, the video game creator and co-showrunner of the HBO show. Table reads even happened, which featured eventual Abby actor Kaitlyn Dever reading for the part of Ellie. Ultimately, it entered development hell and the rights lapsed in 2019.

Druckmann has spoken about why the movie ultimately didn't happen candidly. "When I worked on the movie version, a lot of the thinking and notes were like, 'How do we make it bigger? How do we make the set pieces bigger?'" he told the Script Apart podcast (H/T IGN). "It didn’t work for The Last of Us, and I think that’s ultimately why the movie wasn’t made."

The Last of Us has since been adapted into an extremely successful TV show with a third season on the way. For more on that, check out our guide to The Last of Us season 3 as well as all the upcoming game adaptations on the way.

Street Fighter movie actor Callina Liang has detailed the impressive preparation she put in to play iconic character Chun-Li in the upcoming video game adaptation.

"I downloaded every single version of Street Fighter onto a PS5 and I recorded all of Chun-Li's moves during fights on my phone in slow-mo, so I could play them back and study them," Liang told Empire magazine.

But it wasn't just presumably memorizing her most hard-hitting moves that set Liang on the way to playing Chun-Li (anyway, we'd just suggest spamming ↓ ↘ → + K). No, it was the physical transformation – complete with a diet that might even make most of Street Fighter's musclebound roster think twice. And, yes, that includes making sure Chun-Li's most dangerous weapons, those thighs, look the part.

"Chun-Li is all kicks. So we did a bunch of Taekwondo training, Muay Thai, and wushu," Liang explains. "I did two hours of that a day and strengthened my legs a lot and changed my diet drastically. When I was bulking, I ate 12 eggs a day. Every two hours I had to have a meal and I was on the verge of throwing up. But it worked. By the end of the shoot my thighs had grown six-and-a-half centimeters each."

With director Kitao Sakurai already mentioning how he didn't want to create a "conventional" video game movie, fans can perhaps have high hopes on nailing the wild, madcap tone of Street Fighter. After all, where else does a sumo cross paths with hairy Russian wrestlers, fearsome dictators, and the devil incarnate?

Liang, though, has set herself apart as Chun-Li from the jump. She looks the part, and her video game knowledge will ensure she moves just like Chun-Li. Let's hope those kicks are put to good use when the Street Fighter movie hadoukens its way into cinemas on October 16.

For more, check out the other upcoming video game movies in the works.

Street Fighter has a patchy history on the big screen, to say the least, but the latest adaptation is doing things a little differently, according to director Kitao Sakurai.

If the irreverent Street Fighter trailer and the movie's wild casting choices are any indication, it's a film that isn't taking itself too seriously, and that's by design. "Everybody wanted to get behind creating a movie that had a very distinct tone and approach, that didn't feel like an off-the-shelf video-game movie," Sakurai told Empire Magazine. "I was brought on to make something that didn't feel conventional, and they really let me do my thing."

Sakurai himself is an unconventional choice. The director cut his teeth on comedies like The Eric Andre Show, with little to suggest he'd be the right person to bring the larger-than-life World Warrior Tournament to the screen. But according to the director, who also co-wrote the film's screenplay, that off-kilter perspective is what makes Street Fighter stand out from an increasingly crowded field.

"I also really wanted to honour that feeling I had when I was six years old with my best friend, trying to make our [home-movie] version of a Jet Li movie," Sakuri said. "To just have that sense of fun and irreverence, and not worrying what other people think. To hopefully balance nostalgia with something that feels fresh."

There's not long to go till we find out whether Sakurai and co. have hit the mark. Recently, we got a taste of the action with a special look at the fight between Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Blanka (Jason Momoa). With hadoukens and electric shocks aplenty, it certainly looks like a more reverential adaptation than the notorious, Van Damme-starring '94 movie (and the less said about 2009's Kristin Kreuk-led The Legend of Chun-Li, the better).

Street Fighter is set to top off the biggest year yet for video game adaptations. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Mortal Kombat 2, and Exit 8 have so far been released in 2026, while Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie is still to come. And next year is set to be even bigger, with A Minecraft Movie 2 and the long-awaited live-action The Legend of Zelda movie among the many video games adaps hitting screens.

Street Fighter releases in theaters on October 16. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies and our ranking of the best video game movies

After being rumored for a role as Beast in Marvel's upcoming X-Men movie, Charles Melton is now in talks for Kakashi in the upcoming Naruto movie. Directed by Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Daniel Destin Cretton, the film will be the first live-action adaptation of the beloved manga.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Melton is in final negotiations for the role as the search for Team 7 continues. Naruto follows a young ninja called Naruto Uzumaki who has ambitions to lead his ninja village. However, he must grapple with having the spirit of a demon inside him on his journey to greatness.

Kakashi is the elite ninja who acts as a mentor to Naruto and his friends. This would be the first casting confirmed for Cretton's adaptation of creator Masashi Kishimoto's manga, however it has been announced a global casting search is underway for Team 7, the younger main characters of this story.

Best known for his roles in Beef and May December, Melton first came to fame on Riverdale. He was also recently the subject of X-Men casting rumors, with suggestions he was in talks to play Beast in the new movie.

The actor even addressed the news, remaining neutral on the discussions. "It depends on what day or moment you catch me on, but right now I’d say I think I believe in [director Jake Schreier] and [Beef creator and X-Men co-writer Lee Sung Jin] so much, and I would love to work with them again, and many more times. They know that," Melton told The Playlist.

It seems he may be switching Marvel for manga though, if these casting rumors end up being true. For more, check out our guides to new anime as well as our list of all the Naruto filler you can skip.

From the Sonic movies to Zach Cregger's upcoming Resident Evil film, video game adaptations are taking over Hollywood, with military shooter Gears of War being the latest franchise to be picked up by Netflix. However, producer Kelly McCormick believes that adaptations should contribute to the game's story and lore, rather than retell it.

When we spoke to McCormick about her upcoming festive action flick Violent Night 2, we asked for an update on the Gears of War movie, which is still in very early development. "I can't really talk about Gears of War right now," says McCormick to GamesRadar+. "But I'll leave it at we are very excited about being involved and are making great progress on the script and movement toward making the movie."

The producer added, "I'm really excited, and I think it's a perfect time for it with the game coming out," referring to the upcoming game Gears of War: E-Day.

Although McCormick couldn't spill any details, the producer did give us an insight into how she approaches adaptations like Gears of War. "I think it's a really special IP. People spend a lot of time in their games and love their games. [But] there's more to give than what they're doing in their games," adds the Atomic Blonde producer. "There's more story to tell. And I think, to me, the games that we really respond to are games that have started a story but haven't finished one, or a game that has so much to give story-wise."

McCormick says that the goal is for games and on-screen projects to "communicate between each other," so fans can "play the game," then "see the movie," and so on. "The movie contributes to the next game, and the game contributes to the next movie. And they have a bit of an ecosystem where you can experience both of them and feel more connected to the game, but also feel more connected to the movie."

In June, it was revealed that the Gears of War film, directed by The Fall Guy helmer and McCormick's husband David Leitch, will act as a Delta Squad origin story. The description shared by Entertainment Weekly reads, "a ragtag crew of soldiers who wage a desperate war for survival against the Locust, a race of subterranean creatures set on destroying humanity." Now, that sounds pretty much in line with the new game.

Set 14 years before the first Gears of War game, Gears of War: E-Day follows a young Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago during the first Locust Horde attack. From McCormick's comments and the timing of the adaptation, it would make sense for the movie to serve as an extension of the game. Developed by The Coalition, Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6, 2026.

The Gears of War movie does not yet have a release date. For more, keep up with video game release dates and upcoming video game movies on the way.

It looks like the third Mortal Kombat movie might not happen anymore, as director Simon McQuoid confirms the project is still in limbo.

When asked for an update, McQuoid told The Wrap, "I think it’s still going through its life cycle. So I don’t know yet. I’m not sure."

News of the threquel arrived at New York Comic Con 2025, when screenwriter Jeremy Slater revealed he had started writing the third movie. There has been little update since then. However, that was before Mortal Kombat 2 hit screens. Starring Karl Urban, the sequel follows Johnny Cage as he joins other fighters in the ultimate battle against Shao Kahn.

The sequel premiered early this year to mixed reviews and a 64% score on Rotten Tomatoes. In our Mortal Kombat 2 review, we called the video game adaptation "a step up from 2021’s bizarrely tournament-less Mortal Kombat that lands some killer blows, but it’s far from a flawless victory."

Although the second movie was a vast improvement on the first film, which stands at 55% on RT, the sequel earned $129 million globally against a predicted $80 million budget. When taking marketing and other costs into consideration, Mortal Kombat 2 cannot be called a box office success.

That's not to say Mortal Kombat 3 won't happen at all. Mortal Kombat 2's ending leaves room for more future fights. Not long after release, Slater confirmed that Ludi Lin's Liu Kang would return in the threequel. Despite the character seemingly dying, Slater said Kang's mysterious revival would be addressed in Mortal Kombat 3. However, it sounds as though McQuiod has other projects in line first.

The director added, "I feel like there are other stories that I want to tell that aren’t necessarily in Mortal Kombat and I have multiple things in development, one of which we're just casting now and that’s not Mortal Kombat at all, something that is in the real world and very much a deep dive into a singular character and character study."

For more, check out our guide to upcoming video game movies, and keep up with upcoming video game movies on the way.

After months of radio silence, The Legend of Zelda movie has finally revealed the actor playing series villain Ganondorf. And fans now think we got our first glimpse of the King of the Gerudo last year in leaked set videos.

As noted by @farourage on Twitter, a widely shared set video from The Legend of Zelda's New Zealand shoot appears to feature the actor Uli Latukefu, who we now know is playing the treacherous Ganondorf. Intriguingly, Ganondorf appears to be casually walking around a forest with Bo Bragason's Zelda and Dichen Lachman's Impa. Have his true, Triforce-snatching intentions yet to be revealed at this stage in the movie? Check out the original video below.

If the video does in fact feature Latukefu's Ganondorf, it's certainly a more grounded take on the character, who's traditionally depicted with a long mane of red hair and, in recent games like Tears of the Kingdom, with bulging pectorals on display. Latukefu's Ganondorf, however, appears to have closely cropped hair, though in some videos it does appear to be red, at least.

Either way, fans seem (mostly) thrilled to have a morsel of new information on the movie, which releases in just over 8 months, and until yesterday had only two confirmed cast members in Benjamin Evan Ainsworth's Link and Bragason's Zelda. Alongside Latukefu and Lachman, Deadline's report also claimed that Mass Effect star Yvonne Strahovski will play a "Queen character" (almost certainly the Queen of Hyrule). Sam Neill, who died last month, was also revealed to be part of the cast, though precisely who he's playing is something of a mystery. Fingers crossed he's voicing the Deku Tree.

Despite this influx of casting news, The Legend of Zelda movie is still something of a mystery. We still don't know precisely which game the movie is adapting (the costumes in the first look suggest Breath of the Wild). Though we do know that Ainsworth is something of a newcomer to the series, as he told us he was too young to play Breath of the Wild when it released.

The Legend of Zelda movie releases on April 30, 2027. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies.

The live-action Legend of Zelda movie has reportedly found its Ganondorf in Australian actor Uli Latukefu.

Deadline reports that Latukefu has been cast to play the Zelda movie's main antagonist across multiple movies, which supports rumors claiming Nintendo and Sony plan to make a trilogy out of the live-action adaptation.

Latukefu is best known for playing Dwayne Johnson in the NBC sitcom Young Rock and Byamba in the Netflix drama series Marco Polo. He joins a cast led by The Haunting of Bly Manor's Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, who will play lead hero Link, and Renegade Nell's Bo Bragason, who will play Princess Zelda. This is the first new casting since Ainsworth and Bragason were revealed as the film's leads.

The movie will be the first official live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda universe on the big screen, although plot details are unclear at the moment. At the very least, fans can expect young adventurer Link to embark on a perilous journey to save Princess Zelda from the evil Gerudo warlock Ganondorf, a common theme from the games.

There are actually two main villains in the Zelda universe, Ganon and Ganondorf, who are the same entity in different forms. For a more in-depth explainer on Ganon vs. Ganondorf, you know where to click.

The Maze Runner trilogy director Wes Ball is at the helm with a script from Derek Connolly (Detective Pikachu) and T.S. Nowlin (The Maze Runner). The movie was originally supposed to hit theaters on March 26, 2027 but was delayed to May 7, and ultimately pushed forward to April 30.

For more, check out our guides on upcoming video game movies and the best Zelda games.

Nintendo has finally made big moves into movies in recent years, with this year's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie crossing $1bn at the global box office. The company's latest financial results explain why, and the reason is not just 'loads of money.'

Buried in the graph-packed document is a single page on Nintendo's movie business, which goes some way to explaining why the Japanese powerhouse has finally embraced movies after decades of shunning Hollywood: "We believe that our initiatives in movies and videos can transcend the boundaries of the dedicated video game platform business," the document says. "And provide opportunities for people all over the world to become aware of Nintendo characters."

In plain English, then, Nintendo is saying it can reach a wider audience with movies than it can with games, especially in parts of the world where consoles are not widely available. "In particular, it serves as an opportunity for consumers in regions where dedicated video game platforms are not yet widely adopted to experience Nintendo content for the first time," Nintendo adds.

As the report notes, 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie is currently the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time, with $1.36 billion. This year's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie made significantly less, earning just over $1 billion worldwide by the end of its theatrical run. That was still enough to briefly make it the highest-grossing movie of the year, until Spider-Man: Brand New Day crossed that threshold in less than a week.

Next up for Nintendo on the big screen is Wes Ball's live-action The Legend of Zelda movie. "Going forward, we will take a variety of approaches to continually create contact points with Nintendo characters all over the world," Nintendo's financial report notes, reaffirming that we will likely see a mix of animated and live-action movies from Nintendo going forward. Little is currently known about the live-action Legend of Zelda, though Link actor Benjamin Evan Ainsworth recently told us that he was too young to play Breath of the Wild when it released.

As for Nintendo's video game business, that's not going too badly either: the report confirms that the Switch 2 is still Nintendo's fastest-selling hardware ever, and sales have already surpassed the GameCube's lifetime totals.

The Legend of Zelda movie releases on April 30, 2027. For more, check out our list of every major upcoming video game movie.

The tension is rising with every bit of fresh rotting footage that comes stumbling out of Zach Cregger’s next big project, Resident Evil — and that really is a good thing. From skydiving zombies faceplanting cars to oversized human-shaped mutations hiding out in sewers, the Weapons director’s venture into the popular survival horror franchise doesn’t look to be holding back, which makes sense given how wild he was allowed to go with it.

Speaking to Empire about the new movie, which sees his former Weapons star, Austin Abrams, transporting an organ across Raccoon City, Cregger was borderline giddy about the gruesome playground he’d been given the keys to. “I was given total freedom. I have the final cut. I was not interfered with. I didn't have anyone putting any sort of limitations on me," the director assured.

Being up with the dead comes with issues, though, and Cregger didn’t hide the matter of taking on such a massive franchise and the pressure that can come with it. "It's an incredibly demanding job, and I feel like I could burn out. You have to push yourself so hard to make a movie. Every day on set, you have to be the energy source that 150 people feed off, and I don't know if I'll be able to keep it going. At the very least, I'm gonna have to take years off,” Cregger guessed. “I could change my mind. Maybe in two years I'll be singing a different song. I have no idea. But this is how I've felt for a while.”

It’s certainly an upgrade. Switching from zombie swarms to scary aunts with lipstick in their teeth and magical twigs is a leap, but Cregger promises that the same kind of batshit tone audiences loved with Weapons and Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan) will make itself known in Resident Evil. "Gladys was a very specific flavor. There are a couple of things in this movie that are really wild, and who's to say whether any of them will be the same lightning-in-a-bottle thing that Gladys was. But there's some imagery in Resident Evil that is so fucked-up and weird.”

Splendid. Exactly what we like to hear, and considering Cregger’s work up until now, feels absolutely guaranteed. You can see how much Resident Evil checks both categories when it arrives in theaters on September 18. Should you require more scares than that in the meantime, check out our guide to all the most excting upcoming horror movies.

One of the most exciting upcoming video game movies is The Legend of Zelda, starring House of the Dragon's Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Link and Renegade Nell's Bo Bragason as Zelda.

GamesRadar+ recently caught up with Ainsworth on Zoom to chat about his role as Daeron Targaryen in House of the Dragon season 3 – but, naturally, we had to ask about Ainsworth's trip to Hyrule, too.

"I can't speak too much on the film itself, but I remember vividly when Breath of the Wild came out – and it might show my age – but I remember being quite young at the time when it came out, and so I didn't have a Switch at the time," he admits. "And so, I was watching gamers play it, and watching playthroughs, essentially."

Ainsworth was born in 2008, and Breath of the Wild, possibly the best Zelda game of all time, was released in 2017. Way to make us feel old…

"And then, upon being fortunate enough to play this role, such an iconic character, going back and realizing the 40 years of legacy and history, and the varied tones, the varied stories, the varied renditions and vocal performances of this character as well," he continues. "Yeah, I'm a big fan, and just really excited, because it was an awesome thing to shoot. New Zealand is a wonderful place. But yeah, can't say too much more."

The Legend of Zelda movie arrives on May 7, 2027, while House of the Dragon season 3 continues weekly on HBO Max, Sky, and NOW in the UK, and HBO in the US.

You can keep up to date with our House of the Dragon season 3 release schedule, and, for even more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Game of Thrones movies and TV shows.

The Resident Evil movie runtime might have been revealed, and fans are very pleased with it.

AMC lists the film as 1 hour and 35 minutes (via IGN), which is a pretty slim runtime. "Love a tight 90," says one person on Reddit, with another agreeing: "Normalize 90 minute movies"

"This is about the perfect run length for most horror movies, in my opinion. I saw Evil Dead Burn last night, and while I thought it was decent, it definitely dragged a little towards the end and I think it would have benefitted from ten minutes or so being trimmed out," says someone else.

"90min is the sweet spot for action/horror imo. Evil Dead keeps it short and sweet (Burn is the only one longer than 90 minutes) and it's probably the most consistently good horror franchise," says another fan.

"Perfect, 90 minutes feels perfect for this type of movie," says another fan. "BRING BACK THE 90m MOVIE" is another person's thoughts.

"This pretty much confirms he's not exploring any of the Resident Evil lore. Just balls to the wall zombie survival horror movie," thinks another person.

"It feels like one gigantic sequence. Things pop off about five minutes in and it basically stays like that until the end," director Zach Cregger has previously shared. "What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge... I’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet."

Resident Evil hits theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming video game adaptations for everything else that's in store.

Well, this isn't welcome news for Disney. The live-action Moana remake, starring Catherine Laga'aia and Dwayne Johnson, has sunk to new depths at the box office.

Moana has taken $95 million worldwide, with Deadline reporting that it's now on track to lose over $100 million – if it reaches $250 million total.

Whichever way you spin it, 2026's Moana is a near-historic low for Disney's band of live-action remakes.

Its $43 million takings at the US domestic box office pales in comparison to The Lion King ($191 million), Beauty and the Beast ($174 million), and Aladdin ($91 million).

In fact, Moana only 'stacks up' to the much-maligned remake of Snow White, which also accrued $43 million on opening weekend. It's doing slightly better on the global front, however.

Whether audiences are tiring of remakes or not is unclear. After all, we're just a year removed from the Lilo and Stitch remake grossing over a billion dollars. Perhaps its proximity to Moana 2 – which audiences were far cooler on than the animated original – may not have helped matters.

The live action remake's trailers , too, lacked some of the color and charm that fans would come to expect from the franchise.

Maybe we should have seen it coming. Early responses to Dwayne Johnson's Maui wig weren't pretty, neither were the tepid first Moana reactions – which were far from shiny.

Disney isn't stopping live-action remakes anytime soon, though. While the Hercules remake hasn't moved in some time, a Tangled remake is in the works. A live-action Lilo and Stitch sequel has also been greenlit.

For more, check out the new Disney movies currently in various states of production.

It seems like the live-action Naruto movie is one step closer as casting begins. Spider-Man: Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton is at the helm, and he recently shared a statement, updating fans.

"Kishimoto-sensei's stories have inspired generations of fans around the world, and it's an honor to bring his world and characters to the big screen in live action for the very first time," he wrote on Instagram. "I'm thrilled to kick off this worldwide casting search for our Team 7 and to bring the incredible universe of Naruto to life!"

Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto is equally thrilled by the news, calling the updates a "miracle". In a new press release (via Gizmodo), he wrote: "Right now, miracles are happening to me, one after another. My work, Naruto, is truly, truly becoming a Hollywood movie! And an even greater miracle is that the film will be directed by the one and only Destin Daniel Cretton. I still cannot believe it!"

The renowned manga artist went on to add: "If so many miracles have already come together, then let us hope for even more. I am eagerly looking forward to the miraculous encounters that will bring us extraordinary and passionate actors! I cannot wait to meet my characters in the film!"

As one of the best-selling mangas of all time, Naruto has been the subject of adaptation before. Most notably, it was made into a long-running and much-loved anime series in the early 2000s. However, this will be the first live-action adaptation.

The story follows Naruto Uzumaki, an orphan who dreams of becoming his village's strongest ninja. His journey takes him from an ostracized and outcast young man into the saviour of the ninja world after joining the prestigious Team 7.

No release date has been confirmed yet for the Naruto movie. Check out our guides on how to watch Naruto in order and our Naruto and Naruto Shippuden filler list in the meantime.

Mortal Kombat 2 director Simon McQuoid says the sequel's multiple deaths were vital to the film (and franchise as a whole), and names one as particularly moving.

Warning: major spoilers for Mortal Kombat 2 below!

"We felt with a title like Mortal Kombat and where death is such an important part of the makeup of it, that we wanted people to feel that and to feel the loss of the character, whatever character it was and however they died or exited," McQuoid tells GamesRadar+. "It needed to literally pack a punch, but emotionally pack a punch as well."

The sequel, which introduces Karl Urban's Johnny Cage as he finds his purpose after his acting career dries up, had a grand total of eight major deaths. This includes King Jerrod, Sindel, Revenant, Kung Lao, Cole Young, Saibot, Shao Kahn, Jax, and Liu Kang. At the end of the film, Jonny and Sonya are the only Earthrealm champions, Kitana is crowned Queen of Edenia, and Scorpion, Jade, and Kano are also alive.

Continues McQuoid: "Those various sort of pairings that were built and created by Ed [Boon] in the Mortal Kombat history, like Liu Kang and Kung Lao and Scorpion and Bi-Han and so on. They're all there, and every character in our second story needed to go on their own journey."

Of all the deaths in the film, McQuoid singles out the scene where Shao Kahn rips off Jax's bionic arms and effectively kills him as the most moving to film, as well as the one with the standout audience reaction.

"I actually thought Mehcad [Brooks] did an amazing job with Jax's death. He handled that so beautifully. I've sat in a couple of screenings where the audience really gasped at that moment. Mehcad really understood, 'Okay, I get why this is happening and I get why this matters, and it's important, and I get why Sonya needs to sort of see that happen and, and how that emotionally hits.' It was great. Amazing. It was quite sort of moving on set actually when that was happening. We were all kind of like, 'Oh, shit. What have we done?'"

As for Liu Kang's death, which definitely came as a shock, screenwriter Jeremy Slater previously said that it's meant to be open-ended... and that we will see him again in Mortal Kombat 3. The third installment hasn't been officially greenlit, but the script has been in progress since it was announced back in October 2025 at New York Comic Con.

Mortal Kombat 2 is out on 4K and Blu-ray disc from July 28. For a deeper dive into the movie, check out our Mortal Kombat 2 ending explained, or look ahead with our list of upcoming video game movies.

Mortal Kombat 2 director Simon McQuoid says working closely with NetherRealm and franchise co-creator Ed Boon made for a much better production process this time around.

"Ed was part of this, the second film, from the get-go, and it actually made the creative process a lot easier and more satisfying," McQuoid tells GamesRadar+. "And the more I got to know Ed, it just became more fun. He's such a lovely guy, and he's just a good guy to hang with. And we had these really good creative conversations that... to be able to just go to the master and ask, 'So what, why is this... Why did you do it that way?'

"And then sometimes he'd give quite a sort of detailed explanation of like, 'Okay, well, it came from here, and it started there.' And then other times I'd say, 'So why did you do that?' And he's like, 'Oh, we just thought it'd be cool.' We were always on sort of strong footing. There was no guesswork. It was just kind of like, 'Oh, well, we'll ask Ed.' And his creative director and storywriter, [Dominic Cianciolo]. He was great, too. So the two of them together were just really, really helpful."

Mortal Kombat was created by Ed Boon and John Tobias as part of Midway Games, now NetherRealm, in 1992. Despite being owned by Warner Brothers Games, NetherRealm wasn't directly involved with the first Mortal Kombat movie, which was distributed by Warner Bros. in 2021. Some fans thought this was strange, given that Boon worked so closely with the original 1995 and 1997 film adaptations that he even provided the voice of Scorpion.

Mortal Kombat 2 screenwriter Jeremy Slater previously said that one of the first film's biggest mistakes was the lack of involvement from NetherRealm, and that they plan to have the studio's involvement in every film going forward. A third movie was announced at New York City Comic Con back in October 2025, though there hasn't been much news since then. McQuoid tells GR+ he wants the second film to have a life on digital and streaming before he starts work on a third movie. It's exciting to know that Boon will still be directly involved, given that he and McQuoid seem to be so in sync.

"As an example, Cappi Ireland, the costume designer... we were sort of chatting about what Johnny was gonna wear in Uncaged Fury," McQuoid continues. "And obviously there's a lot of, through the history of what Johnny's worn over things, there's a lot of different things he wears and different options you have in the game, and we've seen him in different things.

"Cappi was like, 'What do you think about this crazy-looking thing?' And I was like, 'I think that that's good. It sort of has a classic-ness to it, and it's certainly a favorite of those who play the game.' So there was this whole conversation, and I said, 'well, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna ask Ed to email me what he thinks Johnny should wear, and I'll, I'm gonna say to him, 'I'll email you at the same time, and then tomorrow when I come in, we'll see what we both said to each other.' It was like, 'Let's flip it over.' He emailed me the same costume, and I emailed him the same costume."

Mortal Kombat 2 is out on 4K and Blu-ray disc from July 28. For a deeper dive into the movie, check out our Mortal Kombat 2 ending explained, or look ahead with our list of upcoming video game movies.

Reactions are in for Moana, Disney's latest live-action remake, and they are not kind.

The film stars Dwayne Johnson as Maui, reprising his role from the original animated film, with Catherine Laga'aia stepping up as Moana herself.

"A shot-for-shot, line-by-line remake without a single original idea. A creatively bankrupt cash grab with ZERO interesting direction. They don't innovate; they imitate," says entertainment journalist Jonathan Sim. "Why watch this when Moana (2016) is on Disney+?! A soulless, miserable financial decision. SKIP!"

"MOANA (2026) shows just how far Disney will go for a quick and easy buck, producing another unnecessary, nearly shot-for-shot, beat-for-beat live-action remake that doesn't offer anything new that wasn't already done better just ten years ago," says Next Best Picture's Matt Neglia. "The visuals are so flat, with a heavy reliance on green-screen use and CGI for so many of its locations, water effects, creatures, and even the musical numbers, that it all comes across as soulless and inauthentic. Dwayne Johnson's inherent charm is weakened by his distracting fake body suit, and Catherine Laga'aia holds her own despite Johnson's outsized presence, but isn't able to leave much of an impression beyond showcasing her lovely singing voice, as the film is too derivative of the original to allow her to distinguish herself. The songs are still catchy and enjoyable to listen to, but I already have an excellent 2016 animated film that I can watch for that instead of this hollow retread."

"MOANA (2026) takes one Disney's most vibrant films of the revival era and turns it into one of the ugliest movies of the year," says Discussing Film's Tyler Llewyn Taing. "The photorealistic style takes more than it gives. Worse, it just doesn't even pretend to have any new ideas."

"The live-action Moana remake is very much just that, a remake, that adds very little to the story aside from a change in medium," says Bleeding Cool's Kaitlyn Booth. "How they managed to make one of the most beautiful locations on Earth ugly, I will never know, but here we are. Catherine is great."

"If you're curious what Moana would be like slower, darker & less whimsical, boy, have I got a movie for you," says Gizmodo's Germain Lussier. "The live-action remake captures some of what made the original so magical with its song scenes, but the rest of it never finds the right tone. Laga'aia innocent."

"Disney's Moana remake is, at best, a cheap imitation and, at worst, weaker in every conceivable way," says FandomWire's Cole Groth. "Two decent performances from Catherine Laga'aia and Dwayne Johnson allow the film to ride on the success of its original, but as with every Disney remake, I ask: what's the point?"

However, it's not all doom and gloom, with some mixed to positive reactions, too. "The LA #Moana is unnecessary, but they do enough great things visually in the first and third act to justify its existence (the second act, not so much)," says The Nerds of Color. "As such, it's definitely one of the better Disney LA remakes (not saying much but it's true)."

"Moana is ok at best. It isn't a disaster like other Disney adaptations but it isn't a great adaptation either," says journalist Fabrício Girão. "It is the most copy and paste Disney remake yet, repeating exact lines and shots from the original, but never reaches the brilliance and excellence of the animated movie."

"Honestly a little surprised to admit how much I enjoyed the live-action Moana," says Mama's Geeky's Tessa Smith. "Catherine Laga'aia does a great job continuing the legacy (& has incredible comedic chemistry with Dwayne Johnson). There are some truly stunning shots. Gosh I love this story."

Moana is in theaters this July 10. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming Disney movies or the most exciting upcoming movies of the year to fill out your watchlist.

Comedy star Danny McBride has given a promising update on his G.I. Joe movie over at Paramount, and says it could start filming next year.

"I've written one. I'm stoked about it. I'm really fired up about the script," Said McBride to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "Paramount seems fired up about it. So hopefully we're shooting it next year."

Created by Hasbro in the '60s, the G.I. Joe franchise revolves around a special mission force battling against a terrorist organization known as Cobra. The Pineapple Express star revealed that he has been a G.I. Joe fan since childhood. "It was definitely the cartoons and the comics. G.I. Joe was my thing when I was a kid. I liked that more than Star Wars, more than anything," added McBride. "I still have all the characters."

However, the star didn't initially plan to make a movie about Joe right off the bat. "I had an idea for a Dreadnoks movie," said McBride. "So I went to Paramount and pitched it, and they were like, 'Well, the franchise kind of needs to be like it needs to be launched, so we can't come out with a Dreadnoks movie. Would you have an angle for a G.I. Joe project?' And I was like, 'Hell yeah, I'll have an angle for that.'"

In the G.I. Joe world, Dreadnoks are a group of mercenaries and thieves who work for various villainous groups, including Cobra. However, it sounds as though the Dreadnoks may still show up in McBride's G.I. Joe movie. The star revealed, "You're following Duke and a group of other Joes. There's that town in the comic, Springfield, which is a town that's secretly all Cobra, and so that is where our film takes place."

McBride penned the script with his Righteous Gemstones collaborators Jeff Bradley and John Couture. "We sat down, and we cracked something that we really love a lot," added the Tropic Thunder star. But just because McBride is known for his funny bone, he says the new film "weirdly grounds G.I. Joe. It's not a comedy; it's like kind of suspense and action. I think it's going to be a lot of fun."

McBride didn't give any casting details away, but he did tease, "We have some pretty interesting people lining up to be in it… it looks like it's going to be pretty fun." Well, if G.I. Joe can replicate the success of Barbie, McBride is onto a winner.

For more, keep up with movie release dates and new movies heading your way.

It sounds as though Zach Cregger's upcoming Resident Evil movie will be a thrill ride from start to finish, just like the video game series it is based on.

"It feels like one gigantic sequence. Things pop off about five minutes in and it basically stays like that until the end," said Cregger to Empire. "What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge... I’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet."

However, even though the upcoming movie is set in the second game, 1998's Resident Evil 2, the feature will focus on a brand new character. Rather than following highly capable rookie cop Leon through the zombie-ridden Raccoon City, the movie will focus on a medical courier named Bryan out on delivery who suddenly gets caught up in the outbreak. Bryan is played by Austin Abrams, who previously collaborated with Cregger on the 2025 horror hit Weapons.

But, unlike Leon, Bryan is not your run-of-the-mill hero. "The concept here is that we’re following an idiot. Not that he’s stupid, but he’s not your typical game character, with no combat skills whatsoever and completely inept at survival," added Cregger. "Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this kind of sacred mission that’s going to take him into the heart of everything. It’s kind of like Frodo going into Mordor."

When we caught up with Cregger on the set of Resident Evil, the director told GamesRadar+, "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... 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."

But Cregger's adaptation will stray away from the game in more ways than one. In the Resident Evil trailer, we saw Raccoon City covered in snow. The winter setting contradicts the game, which takes place in a heatwave during September.

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming video game movies and upcoming horror movies heading our way.

Get the tissues ready. The first trailer for the live-action adaptation of Look Back is here, and it looks just as gut-wrenching as its anime movie and Tatsuki Fujimoto's acclaimed manga.

The dreamy trailer for Kore-eda's Look Back charts the friendship between budding mangaka Fujino and Kyomoto, a shut-in generational artist who is gently coaxed back out to the wider world. As their careers begin to develop, they are suddenly hit by personal tragedy.

The Look Back synopsis reads: "Fujino, a young girl with complete confidence in her talent for drawing manga, and Kyomoto, a reclusive classmate whose artistic ability far surpasses her own, are brought together by their shared passion for creating manga. As in the original work, the film follows the thirteen-year journey of the two characters from their elementary school days onward, portraying it with remarkable sensitivity and a vivid sense of youth."

While it does recreate some panels shot-for-shot, the live-action actors Natsuki Deguchi and Aju Makita add plenty of heart-wrenching realism to a story that's often marked as one of the most bittersweet of the past few decades. Furi Nanase and Rokka Okada play the younger versions of Fujino and Kyomoto.

Look Back is set to release in theaters in Japan on September 11. It marks another achievement for Tatsuki Fujimoto, whose early one-shot work was adapted into an anthology titled 17-26.

Of course, the author is best known for Chainsaw Man. A second season of the anime, adapting the International Assassins arc, has been announced.

Need something to watch? Here are the new anime coming your way this summer, plus our selection of the best anime movies ever made.

After a month in theaters, the Mortal Kombat 2 digital release date has been announced, and there's not long to wait till the beat-em-up sequel can be viewed from the comfort of your home stage. Beats the acid-filled Dead Pool, anyway.

Mortal Kombat 2 debuted to pretty impressive reviews for a video game sequel last month, hitting a solid 64% on Rotten Tomatoes. Our own 3* Mortal Kombat 2 review declared it a "bloody fun second round." Didn't catch it in theaters? Or simply keen for a rematch? Then you can pick it up digitally in North America from June 9, that's just one week from today. Fight!

If you're more of a physical media person, then there's a bit more of a wait, with the movie set to hit all the usual formats on July 28. The 4K and Blu-ray release will also contain five featurettes, but you can get a glimpse of one right now, as we have an exclusive clip from "A 'Boon' to Gamers Everywhere" below, featuring Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon and the cast of Mortal Kombat 2 discussing the legacy of the legendary games. Boon even confirms his favorite MK character; you're not supposed to have favorite children, Ed!

Mortal Kombat 2 made a not-too-shabby $128 million at the box office. Whether that's enough for a threequel remains to be seen, though we've known that screenwriter Jeremy Slater has been working on a third movie without an official greenlight since October 2025. Slater even confirmed that one major character 'death' in Mortal Kombat 2 was left ambiguous to set up a resurrection in the third movie. In conversation with GamesRadar+, Slater also revealed the one fighter he cut from the script for Mortal Kombat 2. Could they finally debut in a third film?

As for those physical featurettes, here's what you get if you pick up Mortal Kombat 2 on 4K or Blu-ray:

• Mortal Kombat II: Evolving the Saga (Featurette)
  Returning characters, new alliances and even bigger fatalities! Go behind the scenes to learn all that went into creating the latest chapter in the Mortal Kombat film saga and how the sequel expands the universe to bolder, bloodier heights.
• Building the Realms of Mortal Kombat (Featurette)
  From the decaying streets of Edenia to the terrifying Pit featured in the iconic video game series, discover how the Mortal Kombat II design teams blended practical sets with groundbreaking VFX to create the legendary realms in the film.
• Mortal Kombat II: Choose Your Fighter (Featurette)
  Awaken your Arcana as you meet the cast and explore the brutal weapons, epic costumes and fierce training that went into bringing their characters to life.
• Klose Quarters Kombat (Featurette)
  Cast members and key creatives share insights into how the stunt preparation, intense fight scenes and weapons training shaped both classic moves and new, merciless combat styles.
• A “Boon” to Gamers Everywhere (Featurette)
  Sit down with chief Mortal Kombat mythmaker and creator Ed Boon for a deep dive into the franchise’s storied history and ongoing evolution that spans three decades of near-infinite games, films and comics, culminating with the live-action sequel.

Mortal Kombat 2 releases digitally in North America on June 9, and on 4K and Blu-ray disc from July 28. For a deeper dive into the movie, check out our Mortal Kombat 2 ending explained, or look ahead with our list of upcoming video game movies.

Streets of Rage is the latest beneficiary of the video game movie gold rush.

After years of development limbo, the adaptation of the classic SEGA arcade beat-'em-up has enlisted Sonic the Hedgehog writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller to pen the script, following on from John Wick creator Derek Kolstad departing the project (via Variety).

Excitingly, they have a fantastic director jumping onboard too – Jeymes Samuel, the creative mind behind The Harder They Fall, the Idris Elba-starring western that was criminally underappreciated upon its release on Netflix in 2021.

In a statement, Lionsgate film boss Erin Westerman talked up Samuel as a great fit for Streets of Rage.

“We and our partners at Sega knew that Streets of Rage demanded a bold filmmaker. Jeymes Samuel’s visceral and explosive style – not to mention his signature use of unforgettable music – is perfect for audiences both familiar with and new to the series. We are so excited for how he will bring his own memorable take to this beloved video game IP."

Streets of Rage exploded onto the scene in the early 1990s, gobbling up quarters with its fast-paced, side-scrolling combat as Axel, Blaze, and Adam took to the streets to fight an increasingly fearsome lineup of criminal gangs and bruising bad guys.

After a warmly-received trilogy, the series went on hiatus for over 25 years before 2020's Streets of Rage 4 – an entry that helped launch a cottage industry of arcade revivals across the next few years.

Streets of Rage is currently undated. For more, check out the many upcoming video game movies currently in the works.

Good news, Minecraft fans, Jack Black and co have delivered a huge update on A Minecraft Movie 2, and it looks like Steve may have a bit of competition this time.

As part of Minecraft Live, stars Black and Jason Momoa give us a little update on how filming is going in New Zealand. The video also gives us our first look at Kirsten Dunst as Alex, sporting the in-game character's red hair in a side plait. However, she doesn't seem to be wearing Alex's signature green t-shirt.

But that's not all, as the video also cuts to gaming content creators TommyInnit and Quackity, who announce the sequel's official title: A Minecraft Movie Squared. Now that's much better than the working titles A Minecraft Movie 2 and A Minecraft Movie sequel. Check out the full clip below.

However, the most interesting part of the video is the few seconds we see What We Do in the Shadows star Matt Berry. The star voiced the Nitwit Villager in A Minecraft Movie, but it looks like he may return as a different character. In one shot, Berry said, "I've been told I'm not allowed to tell you who exactly I'm playing in this new film," before a crew member holds up one of Steve's blue vests. Berry says, "That's not turquoise. Steve would not be wearing that."

Does this mean that Berry will be playing Black's character, Steve? That's not exactly clear, but Minecraft fans are certain they know who he is. "That's definitely Herobrine, no doubt," commented one fan. Now, even if you have played the game, you may not know who Herobrine is, as he is not actually a real character. The figure comes from an online urban legend, where players reported sightings of an evil version of Steve with solid white eyes, who would stalk players and destroy their builds.

Bringing a Minecraft urban legend into the fold wouldn't be the first time Hess has played with the game's lore. In the first film, one of the best Minecraft Movie Easter eggs was a pig wearing a crown, which isn't from the game. This was a reference to the avatar used by a longtime Minecraft player and content creator, Technoblade, who sadly passed away in 2022.

Putting fans first seems to still be at the top of Hess' list going into the sequel, as at the end of the video, he and Mojang Studios creative director Jens 'Jeb' Bergensten reveal how players can get involved. Minecraft has launched the Minecraft Movie Build Challenge, which gives one lucky player the chance to have their build featured in the new movie, and the finalists will get to see the sequel early at a private screening.

For more information on the Minecraft Movie Build Challenge, visit the official Minecraft site. A Minecraft Movie Squared hits cinemas on July 23, 2027. For more, check out our picks of the best video game movies of all time, or keep up with other upcoming movies.

In the pantheon of great hero and arch-villain pairings, He-Man and Skeletor are up there with the best. So it's no surprise that, for the first live-action Masters of the Universe movie in almost 40 years, Skeletor makes his glorious return – and he's badder than ever.

Played unrecognizably by Jared Leto, the latest rendition of Skeletor is a cartoon-faithful take on the character with a twist: at the outset of the movie, he wins, plunging Eternia into 15 years of tyranny. Not that it makes the famously petulant Skeletor any happier.

"We loved [Skeletor] and we wanted to make sure that those things that we loved about him came through on the screen," Knight tells GamesRadar+. "He was funny, he was strange, he was scary, he was menacing, he looked cool. He was deeply insecure. He was always insulting his underlings. He had a very distinctive voice and a distinctive laugh. And so making sure that we had all of those things in the character was really important."

Much like Knight, a He-Man fan dating back to childhood, Leto had his "own history" with He-Man, before signing up to play ol' skullface. "He loved He-Man when he was a kid, just like I did," Knight says. "And Skeletor was his favorite character. So he really wanted to create a distinctive villain that honored everything that came before, while at the same time putting our spin on it. And he gave an incredible performance. I just think he's so fun to watch."

Unlike the main star behind a certain masked Mandalorian, Leto gave a full physical performance as Skeletor, donning a prosthetic suit each day on set. Though the final result was achieved using an impressive mix of filmmaking techniques, including a full-CG skull face.

"Ultimately, it comes down to collaboration of disciplines, because he's wearing this incredible muscle suit that was put together by our prosthetics master Barry Gower. He has this incredible costume made by our costumers led by Richard Sale, so he's on set completely performing for his fellow actors, and the only thing that wasn't there on the day was the skull of the face.

"Jared's face was replaced by CG animation," Knight continues. "And the animators did an extraordinary job of capturing the nuance and the personality that Jared brought to the physical and the vocal performance, and so the face is really emotive. You wouldn't think that would be the case for a skull, but there's a lot of personality and a lot of emotion in that skull!"

For Knight, there was no question that Leto needed to be present on set. Leto's vocal performance, meanwhile, needs to be heard to be believed, and lands somewhere closer to Tom Hardy's Bane than Thanos.

"It was important to me, because it's not just the voice or the facial performance. So much of what we love about an actor is what they do with their body. How they physically move, it can communicate so much, so many different types of emotions just based on someone's bearing, how they walk across the room. Jared understood that the physical performance was a big part of it. There's so much that he brings to that aspect of it that has nothing to do with what you're hearing or what you're seeing in his face."

Masters of the Universe stars Nicholas Galitzine, Jared Leto, Camila Mendes, and Idris Elba, and reboots the classic Filmnation cartoon. If you're wondering how the new movie reckons with He-Man's "wildly internally inconsistent" mythology, Knight told us all about that, too.

Masters of the Universe releases in theaters on June 5. For more, check out our list of upcoming movies, or plan out your year with our 2026 movie release dates guide.

Norman Reedus has revealed how one anime recommendation from Death Stranding collaborator Hideo Kojima gave him "street cred" – and may prove the catalyst for a live-action adaptation.

When asked by GQ Hong Kong whether he was into anime, Reedus offered, "There's Chainsaw Man, which Hideo Kojima told me about. He said it was his favorite."

From there, Reedus revealed he "went around Tokyo looking for the [manga], 'cause I have a production company and I was looking for cool things to make. I got a lot of street cred for knowing Chainsaw Man."

The Walking Dead actor later watched Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc, but it's Reedus' admission about actively looking for the source material with an eye to adapting it for his bigbaldhead company that might raise a few eyebrows.

After all, Chainsaw Man – one of this fresh anime generation's leading lights – feels ripe for a live-action adaptation. Its anarchic, gory sense of style and blockbuster action scenes are tailor-made for the Hollywood treatment and would join the likes of One Piece in finding favor out west.

Even if that doesn't come to pass, Reedus can rest assured that more Chainsaw Man is on the way. The second season, an adaptation of the manga's International Assassins arc, has been announced, though no release date is forthcoming.

Reedus, meanwhile, is seemingly saying goodbye to his longstanding The Walking Dead character after Daryl Dixon season 4, which is releasing later this year.

For more, check out our complete guide to 2026's new anime, plus all the latest on Chainsaw Man season 2.

While there have been many animated shows, comics, and even a previous live-action movie over the last four decades, Masters of the Universe has never been a franchise where mythology is considered sacred. So when it came to adapting Masters of the Universe once again, director Travis Knight didn't feel beholden to previous takes on the character.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ at a press event in London, Knight – who fell in love with He-Man aged eight through the original Filmation cartoon and action figures – addressed the new movie's relationship to continuity in He-Man canon. "It's certainly something I thought about," he says. "But anytime you've got a property like this, a world and a series of characters that have been around for over four decades, the continuity is going to be all over the place. And it is in this property. It's wildly internally inconsistent. So, in the end, you have to decide what you embrace and what you leave behind."

For Knight, that meant embracing the original source. "It was always going back to the toys, the little mini-comics, and the Filmation cartoon from the '80s. That was really what we used as our foundation. We make choices based on where we want these characters to go, but that really was the baseline. We drew from other sources, some aspects of the '87 live-action movie. There were some obscure newspaper comic strips that we pulled from. But the foundational element was the original '82, '83 era."

That much is plain to see in the movie, which faithfully renders He-Man, Skeletor, Teela, Cringer, Man-at-Arms, and the more obscure/bizarre likes of Fisto, Ram-Man and Mekaneck as if they've just leapt out of the cartoons. In the new movie, Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) is stranded on Earth after Skeletor's forces destroy Eternos. Fifteen years later, Adam returns to embrace the mantle of He-Man, and liberate Eternia from Skeletor's tyrannical rule, but he's not exactly the hero of legend that everyone expects.

Despite heading up stop-motion studio Laika, and working in animation for much of his career, Knight didn't keep up with He-Man's mostly animated output over the years. "[He-Man] was a huge part of my childhood, but there were so many different iterations since then, and that was not something that I vibed on [at the time]," Knight admits. "But getting acquainted with some of that stuff now with fresh eyes as an adult, it was interesting to see what remained and what changed. For me it was always about: hold on to what made it pure and interesting to begin with, which was where it started."

Masters of the Universe might not be picking up directly from any previous adaptations, but Knight previously revealed how the new movie is acknowledging the original animated series by imagining "What would happen if [Skeletor] actually won?" In the same interview, Knight also claimed that fan-favorite character She-Ra will "play a huge part" in any sequel. Thankfully, those sequel prospects are looking promising – early verdicts have billed Masters of the Universe " as one of the biggest surprises of 2026."

Masters of the Universe releases in theaters on June 5. For more, check out our list of upcoming movies, or plan out your year with our 2026 movie release dates guide.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is officially one step closer to its release as star Ben Schwartz confirms that voice recording has now begun. The upcoming fourth movie in the video game adaptation franchise wrapped live-action filming recently.

The actor shared the news on Instagram with a picture of himself with director Jeff Fowler and editor Al LeVine. Alongside the photo in the studio, he wrote: "Voice records for Sonic 4 have begun! I. Am. So. Excited. For. You. To. See. This. Movie."

Live-action production wrapped on the movie in mid-May as Fowler shared a look at Sonic's robotic clone Metal Sonic. Alongside that, he teased that it will be the "best Sonic movie yet". Set for a release date of March 19, 2027, the new movie doesn't have a synopsis yet. But we do have a pretty good idea about what it will feature after the mid-credits scene of Sonic 3 gave us some hints.

That ended with the introduction of Amy Rose, who will be voiced by Kristen Bell in the upcoming fourquel. There were also a whole host of metal sonics introduced in the ending scene, which we know will play a big part in the fourth film.

Not much else has been confirmed, but we are expecting to see the return of most of the major actors in the upcoming fourth film. As well as Schwartz and Bell, Jim Carrey, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Idris Elba, Keanu Reeves, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and Lee Majdoub are all coming back.

They'll be joined by some other newcomers, as Ben Kingsley, Matt Berry, Nick Offerman, and Richard Ayoade have all been added to the cast.

For more upcoming movies, check out our breakdown of all the new video game adaptations to add to your calendar.

Liu Kang was seemingly one of the main casualties in the bloody sequel Mortal Kombat 2. After fighting Shao Kahn, he was dealt a fatal wound before his body transformed into flames. However, there was a level of vagueness surrounding his passing in the film as he didn't become a corpse, leading us to wonder if he could return at some point.

Now it turns out that his death was originally a lot more definitive, rather than being left open-ended. Speaking on Brandon Davis' podcast, actor Ludi Lin says there were a whole bunch of different endings discussed for his character. One suggestion was a Game of Thrones-style mass killing of everyone but Kitana, while an earlier script killed off Liu Kang a lot earlier.

One other ending was even filmed, but the audiences they tested it with were not big fans. "There's also a version where Liu Kang's death is way more brutal and my stunt double, Tyson Tran, actually shot that scene," Lin explained.

"Liu Kang gets smashed, he slams into a pillar, goes into [the] ceiling, falls down, does a scorpion where he comes over his back, snapping his spine, like ultimate fatality. I think in the end he falls on a spike or something like that. They tested it and the audiences hated it, they were like, 'No he deserves better.'"

For more on how it all went down, check out our breakdown of the Mortal Kombat 2 ending explained. We've also got all you need to know about other upcoming video game adaptations coming in 2026 and beyond.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 has officially wrapped filming with blue blur speed, and it's apparently the best movie in the game-to-film franchise so far.

Returning series director Jeff Fowler yesterday tweeted a picture of himself in the director's chair, grinning alongside a menacing Metal Sonic that does not want to be there. "And that's a wrap on SonicMovie4," he writes in the post down below. "On behalf of this amazing cast/crew, we have filmed the BEST Sonic Movie yet and can't wait to share."

Filming began back in March, a short two months ago, when we got our first look at Amy Rose's iconic hammer. Both Metal Sonic and Amy Rose {Kristen Bell) are set to play major parts in the upcoming movie after they were teased in mid-credits scenes at the end of Sonic 3.

Metal Sonic was first introduced as a recurring antagonist in 1993's Sonic the Hedgehog CD - where he also kidnaps Amy Rose - created by big bad Dr. Eggman as a cutting-edge machine capable of rivalling his nemesis' iconic speed.

The sequel's first teaser already gave us a look at Jim Carrey's return to the role of Dr. Eggman, despite the character's death at the end of Sonic 3, so everything's in place for the movie to follow Metal Sonic's origin story, at least loosely.

Paramount has yet to release an official synopsis for the fourquel, but Sonic 3 passed the baton on pretty neatly for Sonic 4 to go zooming. Not only did Team Sonic remain victorious, a post-credits scene teased that Shadow is alive and well, actually, so expect the whole gang to be here (minus, I don't know, Silver?)

Sonic 4 races to theatres on March 19, 2027.

For more, check out our picks of the best video game movies of all time.

The live-action Legend of Zelda movie is now releasing one week sooner than originally announced, as revealed by none other than franchise creator Shigeru Miyamoto himself on social media.

Miyamoto took over the official Nintendo Twitter account with his trademark "This is Miyamoto" introduction to let everyone know some good news. Instead of its original May 7, 2027 release date, the Zelda movie will now premiere in theaters worldwide on April 30, 2027. Miyamoto didn't really provide an explanation, but said the production team is working its hardest to get the film on screen as quickly as possible.

"This is Miyamoto. I would like to let you know that the worldwide theatrical release date for the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda has been moved up to April 30, 2027, from May 7," reads the English version of Miyamoto's tweet. "The team is working hard to deliver the film to everyone as soon as possible. There's less than a year to go until release, so thank you for waiting."

Although we're less than a year away from seeing the Zelda movie for ourselves, we still don't know a whole lot about it. Nintendo has revealed the two main actors, with Haunting of Bly Manor actor Benjamin Evan Ainsworth taking on the role of main protagonist Link and Renegade Nell star Bro Bragason as series namesake, Zelda.

We also know filming began in New Zealand last November, but the biggest question surrounding the project still lingers: which game is the movie adapting, or is it an adaptation of the series as a whole that'll incorporate elements from different entries? Personally, I'd love to see a live-action Twilight Princess movie - and a leaked image of Link's full outfit certainly fits the look - but that game is also just dark and weird enough that it might be extremely difficult to translate to film in a way that appeals to a worldwide office and does numbers at the box office.

With game adaptations being all the rage lately, keep up with everything on the horizon with our guide to upcoming video game movies for 2026 and beyond.

Unfortunately, it looks like the upcoming Voltron live-action remake starring Henry Cavill will not see the big screen, as Amazon confirms the movie will go straight to streaming.

Amazon MGM Studios broke the news during its slate presentation at Amazon Upfront (H/T Discussing Film), confirming that the Voltron movie will skip a theatrical release and debut straight on streaming, either on Prime Video or add-on channel MGM+. The movie is set to adapt the 1984 animated series, Voltron: Defender of the Universe.

This is just the latest setback the project has faced after a series of delays. The movie has technically been in development since 2005, when The Mark Gordon Company announced plans to adapt the franchise. However, over the years, the idea floated around many studios, including New Regency and Universal Pictures, until 2022, when Amazon MGM Studios entered negotiations with Hasbro for the rights, which were granted in early 2026.

It seems as though fans are not too happy with the news and are taking the project's streaming release as a bad sign. One fan said on Twitter, "Is it that bad that they have to cancel theatrical release? Because a movie like this would have sold tickets," and another added, "Not every blockbuster needs theaters, but giant robots fighting in space definitely feels like one that does." On the other hand, some prospective viewers are excited to watch the ne movie in the comfort of their own homes, as one said, "Love the hell out of this. Going to theaters is in the past for me."

The Voltron movie, directed by Red Notice’s Rawson Marshall Thurber, will follow a group of pilots who command five robot lions that fit together to create super robot Voltron. After being transported from Earth to Princess Allura's planet Arus, they use the machinery to fight Warlord King Zarkon, Haggar, and monsters called Robeasts.

Alongside Cavill, the cast also includes Daniel Quinn-Toye, Sterling K. Brown, Rita Ora, John Harlan Kim, Alba Baptista, Samson Kayo, Tharanya Tharan, Laura Gordon, Tim Griffin, Nathan Jones. Witcher star Cavill will reportedly play warrior King Alfur, and Brown will play his nemesis and the movie's primary villain, Zarkon.

The Voltron movie is expected to be released in 2027. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2026 and beyond

Critics and audiences are in agreement that Mortal Kombat 2, which has just hit theatres, is a huge improvement on the first film, and that might be because the developers of the Mortal Kombat game franchise were more involved this time around.

In an interview with Forbes, writer Jeremy Slater, who was brought on board for the sequel, said, "One of the mistakes we wanted to rectify from that first movie was not having NetherRealm Studios as creatively involved as they could have been." So, for round 2, the team made sure that the creators were "involved every step of the way."

Despite being owned by Warner Brothers Games, NeatherRealm was not really directly involved with the first Mortal Kombat movie, which was released under Warner Brothers Pictures in 2021. The movie was by no means a flop, but it was clear the video game adaptation lacked franchise insight, which you can only really get when those making the movie know the source material inside out.

"You can go on Wikipedia and ask, 'What are the most popular stages? What are the best finishing moves?' But it’s so different to be able to go directly to the horse’s mouth, the guy who has been interacting with the fan base for 34 years," said Slater. Mortal Kombat was created by Midway as an arcade game in the early '90s. However, NetherRealm later bought out the franchise and went on to release a string of new games from 2013 onwards.

By involving NetherRealm, Slater had a "sort of cheat sheet available anytime we had questions about the lore and mythology," which seems to have paid off. Mortal Kombat 2 opened to $40 million in the US over the weekend, which is a vast improvement over Mortal Kombat's $23 million domestic opening. Critics recognise the franchise's growth too, as the sequel currently sits at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes, 10% higher than the first film. In our Mortal Kombat 2 review, we call the sequel a "step up from 2021’s bizarrely tournament-less Mortal Kombat that lands some killer blows."

Looking to the future, if Warner Bros. does decide to go for round 3, Slater says his "dream is that they will be this creatively involved with every installment of Mortal Kombat going forward because they are the lifeblood of what we're doing here."

Mortal Kombat 2 is out in theatres now. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies or our full list of upcoming movie releases.