Zach Cregger’s upcoming Resident Evil movie will take audiences back into a world filled with biological experiments, infected creatures and seemingly impossible odds. However, one of the franchise’s most recognizable heroes will not be joining the fight.
Leon S. Kennedy is not expected to appear in the new film, despite the story unfolding within the familiar world of Capcom’s survival-horror games. Rather than attempting to create another live-action interpretation of Leon, Cregger has chosen to build the movie around an entirely original protagonist.
That decision has been a point of concern for some longtime fans. Leon is one of the faces of the franchise, and his absence from a movie connected to Raccoon City is bound to raise questions. Cregger, however, believes leaving the character alone is ultimately a sign of respect.
Zach Cregger Does Not Believe Leon Kennedy Needs Reinventing
During an interview discussing his approach to the adaptation, Cregger explained that he did not want to take characters and stories that already work within the games and reshape them simply for the sake of creating another movie version.
His reasoning was especially direct when the conversation turned to Leon.
“I’m not going to be able to improve on Leon.”
For Cregger, Leon is already fully realized through the games. His appearance, personality, dialogue and history are all closely connected to the character fans have controlled for years. Casting a new actor, changing his hairstyle or writing new dialogue would inevitably create someone who feels slightly removed from the Leon players already know.
That is a surprisingly honest position for a filmmaker taking control of a major video game property. Hollywood adaptations frequently begin by asking how an established character can be changed for a wider audience. Cregger appears to be asking a different question: Why change something the games have already done well?
“It’s not survival action; it’s survival horror. It’s like this slow creeping dread where you progress from set piece to set piece, and you always feel like you have maybe just enough to survive, but probably not. And that’s so portable into a movie. Just living in that world and abiding by that pacing and that tone feels so, so easy. You know, like making a movie is really hard, but it just feels like it’s right there. It’s in the games.”
The Movie Will Follow A New Survivor Named Bryan
Instead of Leon, Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield or Chris Redfield, the new Resident Evil will follow Bryan, a medical courier played by Austin Abrams.
Bryan becomes trapped in a rapidly worsening nightmare while attempting to complete what should have been a routine delivery. He is not a highly trained police officer, government agent or experienced fighter. He is an ordinary person suddenly forced to navigate a situation that he is completely unprepared to survive.
That vulnerability appears to be central to Cregger’s vision.
Leon may begin Resident Evil 2 as a rookie police officer arriving for his first day of work, but he is still capable with a firearm and quickly adapts to the horrors surrounding him. Bryan reportedly possesses none of those advantages. He must make mistakes, panic and find solutions without the confidence audiences usually expect from an action hero.
Following a less capable protagonist could help the film recreate the anxiety of playing a survival-horror game for the first time. The audience may understand the danger, but Bryan does not know which hallways are safe, what is waiting behind the next door or whether the few supplies he finds will be enough.
Cregger Wants To Capture The Experience Of Playing Resident Evil
Cregger’s comments suggest that his priority is not recreating one particular game scene by scene. He wants the movie to feel like the experience of playing Resident Evil.
That distinction matters.
The games are effective because they make players feel underpowered. Ammunition is limited, healing items are valuable and even a seemingly ordinary hallway can become dangerous without warning. Progress often brings more questions instead of relief, while each new area introduces another threat.
Cregger has described his movie as an original story that follows the rules of the games and leans heavily into survival horror rather than survival action. The intention is to build dread gradually, placing Bryan in increasingly dangerous situations while making it feel as though the entire environment is working against him.
That approach could separate the film from many previous Resident Evil adaptations.
Resident Evil Movies Have Struggled With Familiar Characters
The franchise has already tried several methods of bringing its video game heroes into live action.
Paul W.S. Anderson’s original film series began with Alice, an original character played by Milla Jovovich. As those movies expanded, recognizable figures including Leon, Jill, Claire, Chris and Ada Wong were introduced. However, many of them were placed into a continuity and style that differed considerably from the games.
The 2021 reboot, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, moved in the opposite direction. It directly incorporated characters and storylines from the first two games, placing Leon, Claire, Chris and Jill inside a condensed retelling of the Raccoon City outbreak.
That approach offered fans more familiar names, locations and visual references, but it also demonstrated the difficulty of compressing multiple games into a single movie. With so many characters competing for time, several of them lacked the development needed to feel like complete versions of their video game counterparts.
Cregger’s strategy avoids that problem. He does not have to explain decades of mythology, recreate every important relationship or satisfy competing expectations about how Leon should look and behave. He can instead tell a smaller story about one person trying to survive within a much larger disaster.
Leaving Leon Out Could Preserve His Importance
Not including Leon does not necessarily mean the filmmakers dislike the character or consider him unimportant. Cregger’s comments suggest the opposite.
Leon has remained popular because audiences have spent years watching him evolve. He began as an idealistic rookie and eventually became a hardened government agent capable of confronting increasingly extreme biological threats. Different games have shown his humor, exhaustion, determination and ability to remain calm during impossible situations.
A single movie would have difficulty carrying all of that history, particularly if Leon were only included as a supporting character or recognizable cameo.
There is also something refreshing about a director admitting that a popular character does not need to be placed into every story. Shared universes often become overly dependent on familiar faces, even when their involvement adds little beyond a brief moment of recognition.
By allowing Leon’s established story to remain untouched, the new film can expand the world without pretending that every disaster must revolve around the same handful of heroes.
The Original-Character Approach Still Carries A Risk
Although Cregger’s reasoning is understandable, the decision is not without risk.
Fans have waited years for a live-action Resident Evil adaptation that captures both the atmosphere of the games and the personalities of their characters. Another movie centered on an original protagonist may remind some viewers of earlier adaptations that borrowed the franchise’s monsters and imagery while moving further away from its central heroes.
The film will therefore need to prove that it belongs in the Resident Evil universe for reasons beyond the presence of zombies, laboratories and Umbrella-related experiments.
Faithfulness is not determined solely by character names, but recognizable creatures and Easter eggs are not enough either. The movie must capture the isolation, resource management, environmental storytelling and escalating dread that make the games memorable.
If Cregger succeeds, Bryan’s unfamiliarity could become one of the film’s greatest strengths. Audiences will not know whether he survives, what role he plays in the larger outbreak or how his decisions might affect the people around him. That uncertainty is difficult to maintain when a movie follows a franchise hero whose future is already well established.
A Different Kind Of Faithful Adaptation
Cregger is not promising a direct retelling of a particular Resident Evil game. He appears to be aiming for something more complicated: an original story that remains faithful to the franchise’s internal logic and emotional experience.
That means asking audiences to accept a Resident Evil movie without Leon Kennedy, Jill Valentine or another familiar hero guiding them through the outbreak.
It is a bold choice, but it may also be the most sensible path available. Previous adaptations have repeatedly demonstrated how difficult it is to satisfy fans by recreating beloved characters without giving them enough time, depth or accuracy.
Cregger’s film will instead rise or fall on whether Bryan’s journey can produce the same dread players feel when ammunition is running low, an unexplored door is waiting at the end of a corridor and something can be heard moving nearby.
Leon may be absent, but Cregger clearly believes the spirit of Resident Evil can exist without rewriting him. Audiences will find out whether that gamble pays off when the movie arrives in theaters on September 18, 2026.
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