Resident Evil: Afterlife director discusses his secret to success, Hollywood taking games seriously

A portion of a CrispyGamer interview with Director Paul W.S. Anderson…

CG: With so many video game adaptations failures at the box office, what do you think the secret to success is?

PA: As a filmmaker, I’m definitely immersed in the world of Resident Evil, so even though we’re choosing to tell slightly different stories and introduce some different characters, the movies are very much immersed in the video game world. You can see it from the way they’re shot to what the production design looks like, to what the costumes look like. This is clearly a franchise made by people who know the intellectual property that it’s based upon very, very well. I think it infuses the whole movie with the feeling of Resident Evil that I think the fans know is authentic.

CG: Do you think Hollywood still doesn’t take videogames seriously?

PA: Well, it always surprises me when sometimes people who direct video game adaptations say that they never played the video game. I’m like, “No wonder you didn’t manage to capture what the fans like about the video game.” It didn’t surprise me when Prince of Persia — I haven’t seen it yet, but people say it’s very disappointing — didn’t do the business they were hoping. The director (Mike Newell) was very vocal about the fact he never played the video game. And for me, that’s like adapting a book without reading the book or adapting a stage play and never seeing the stage play. I think it’s disrespectful to the medium, and it’s disrespectful to the original source material, and ultimately, it doesn’t make the best movie.