Resident Evil 6's Script Is Being Written, Li Bingbing Returning

The Resident Evil franchise is one that you might call a bit of an odd duck. While audiences here in the United States pretty much just shrug at the movies - none of them have made more than $65 million during their domestic run - movie-goers abroad absolutely eat them up. The films have only gotten more popular overtime, with the last two earning $296 million and $240 million, respectively, so it should be a surprise to nobody that director Paul W.S. Anderson is prepping a fifth sequel.

According to CNTV, the filmmaker was in China recently speaking at the Beijing International Film Festival on behalf of the future of 3D n Hollywood blockbusters, and during his time on stage he revealed that he will soon start working on the script for Resident Evil 6. You can watch Anderson talk about the project in the video embed below (you can skip forward to about the 1:17 mark to hear the director talk about the sequel.

While many sites have written stories saying that the name of the new Resident Evil movie will be Resident Evil: Rising, that information is false. CNTV misquoted Anderson in their own story, reporting that the director said, "I have to go home tomorrow for Rising Resident Evil." Watching Anderson speak in the video above he clearly says that he is "writing" the movie. That being said, "Rising" is just as nonsensical and meaningless as all of the other subtitles in the franchise, so why not call the movie Resident Evil: Rising?

This isn't the first time that we've heard about Resident Evil 6, but the time table has definitely changed a great deal in the time since the first report. Back in March of last year it was said that Screen Gems was planning to have the latest installment of the video game movie franchise in theaters on September 12, 2014. Obviously if Anderson is still working on the script that date is definitely not happening. Instead, we can probably expect that the movie will move to 2015 and join the laundry list of popular series filling that calendar year.

In addition to bringing back Milla Jovovich as Alice, a character the actress has now been playing for more than a decade, the CNTV report also adds that the film will co-star Li Bingbing, who played Ada Wong in the last sequel, Resident Evil: Retribution. Get caught up with that installment watching the trailer below:

We're sure to hear more about Resident Evil 6 in the coming months, so stay tuned.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.