Resident Evil: Afterlife producer Paul W.S. Anderson has suggested that a good chunk of directors who work on videogame – movie adaptations are largely unfamiliar with the source material.
Speaking to MCV, Anderson, who has churned out no less than four Resident Evil flicks to date since 2002, reckons most directors don’t do the games justice and fail to understand what players appreciate about them.
"A lot of video game movies are made by directors who don’t know the video games they are based on from a hole in the head," he said. "They don’t do justice to the games, they don’t immerse themselves in the games, they don’t understand what people liked from the games. And that is the wrong approach and clearly those movies don’t work."
"You can fool people once, you know. I was excited to see the Tomb Raider movie the first time it came out. I saw it, it wasn’t very good, I wasn’t very excited to go and see the second film. I think with Resident Evil it is very telling that each movie has done better than the one before."
Anderson went on to insist that he’s a massive fan of Capcom’s survival horror franchise, despite Internet naysayers claiming otherwise.
Furthermore, his Resident Evil movie franchise has raked in ‘billions’ in terms of revenue, and remains the most successful game – movie adaptation to date. A fifth film, subtitled Retribution, will begin shooting this October for a release in fall 2012.
Elsewhere, Anderson also touched on the fact his movies are largely detached from the games themselves in terms of overall narrative, explaining the difficulties of having both projects work in unison.
"You are also dealing with substantially different timelines," he explained. "You can make a good movie in a year. You can’t make a good video game in a year. So it is very difficult for movie and game companies to really work together, especially when you can’t even guarantee that the game is going to come out when you say it is going to."