Zach Cregger has revealed that he originally had a different ending in mind for his recently released Resident Evil reboot.
In an interview with Collider, the director revealed that the ending in the final cut of the film was, in fact, originally only filmed as a “contingency plan,” before Cregger decided to use it to replace his initial idea for the ending.
The alternate ending discussion starts at the 18:35 mark in the video below.
Warning: The following contains major spoilers for Resident Evil (2026).
In the film’s final scene, Bryan (played by Austin Abrams) arrives at the Umbrella laboratory with a crucial part of the antidote, fulfilling his mission. By this stage, however, he begins to succumb to his infection, and starts mutating. With his humanity intact but his body involuntarily starting to attack everyone around him, the scientists desperately struggle to jab Bryan with the cure. In the film’s final moment, a fully infected Bryan kills the last surviving scientist and allows the syringe to drop to the city below.
Cregger explained that the antidote was originally going to be destroyed much sooner, until the director realised that this would eliminate the final scene’s tension.
“Originally in the script, that scientist pulls the needle out, and as soon as Austin grabs the woman’s face, he drops it, and it shatters,” Cregger said.
“Then the rest of the movie is just Austin killing the scientists, and people were just like, ‘No, like it’s over,’ you know. But I shot that shot of the scientist putting the needle in his pocket just because I had a feeling. I was like, ‘I feel like I’m going to need that.’
“And so, then we were able to build a new sequence of the end, and I shot a contingency of him going for the stab in Prague when we were doing our thing, as just like, ‘If I need it, I should just get it.’ Thank God, because that’s what we ended up using. It keeps the stakes all the way until the end. It’s like, ‘save him, save him.’ Whereas before it was just like ‘kill them all.'”
Resident Evil is available in theaters now. It is co-written by Zach Cregger and Shay Hatten, and stars Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser, and Jonno Wilson.
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Written by Reece Heather
A veteran Zelda Universe editor and First-class journalism graduate, Reece emerged with a Nintendo 64 and a lifelong obsession after a narrow escape from Santa’s Naughty List in 1998. Outside of games, he’s reading Punisher comics, being bossed around by his cocker spaniel, and cornering innocent bystanders to rant about the importance of game preservation.
