Zach Cregger, the co-writer and director of the upcoming Resident Evil reboot movie, drew a comparison between his protagonist and Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings. In this Resident Evil iteration, the main lead is Austin Abrams’ Bryan, an original character who doesn’t appear in the namesake game series.
Why Zach Cregger compares his Resident Evil protagonist to LOTR’s Frodo
The Weapons director discussed his take on the Resident Evil franchise and the protagonist he has developed for it during a recent interview. He also claimed that the movie is like Frodo venturing into Mordor in The Lord of the Rings.
Zach Cregger told Empire Magazine, “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. 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.”
Notably, this isn’t the first time that Cregger has called his Resident Evil protagonist an “idiot.” While explaining why Leon Kennedy from the games isn’t in the feature, he shared in May 2026 that he wanted “this movie to tell the story of what would happen if some idiot like me” arrived in “the world of a RE game.”
In the above-mentioned Empire interview, Zach Cregger also promised that the movie would feel like “one gigantic sequence.” He elaborated, “Things pop off about five minutes in, and it basically stays like that until the end. What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge. So again, I’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet.”
Besides Austin Abrams, the cast of the Resident Evil reboot includes Zach Cherry as Dave, Kali Reis as Pauline, Paul Walter Hauser as Carl, and Johnno Wilson as Max. The movie premieres in US theaters on September 18, 2026.
Originally reported by Tamal Kundu on SuperHeroHype.
