Resident Evil: Degeneration

Resident Evil: Degeneration Trailer

Sony Pictures and Capcom reached an agreement for the development of an animated movie based on the Resident Evil universe, coming November 13, 2008.

Resident Evil: Degeneration will be the first film in the saga generated entirely by computers, after the latest versions led by Milla Jovovich.




Now, the commentary... Okay. Sony didn't learn their lesson with their Final Fantasy movie. They thought they could break into this whole new market with a realistic CG action movie. They also aren't learning from Beowulf, which did decently well, and it still didn't make up the cost of the film.

They also aren't learning from the 2D films Titan AE, Sinbad, Treasure Planet, and Atlantis (which did $85 million, the most successful of this pack). They all lost money as well.

Here's why: Sony, moms control the cartoon film market. Think about it.

If a boy wants to see a film, who's going to buy the ticket? The mom. The dad only will if he wants to see the film too, and he'd much rather see Iron Man or Die Hard 4 than a CG version of Resident Evil.

So why is the mom going to want to see this? Even if her son is asking her, and she's selfless, her daughter certainly doesn't want to see this. However, both kids want to see Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E (or whatever the current family cartoon films are... maybe Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Bolt, and Madagascar 2). So the mom isn't going to buy these tickets, especially when she can tell her boys to watch their cartoons on TV and they'll rent this one later on DVD.


That's why this will be a flop. You have no market. The people who want to see this don't have money they control. All your left with is the niche anime and hard core gamer crowd, the same crowd that saw Final Fantasy.


I bet you high school boys or younger is a huge chunk of the market for the games. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s over half the market.


And the mass market men aren’t into CG. We’ve proven that several times.


All you’re left with are the die-hard fans. It’s not enough. The only reason why the live-action RE movies did decently is because people wanted to go see a zombie movie with action. While I’m sure the RE brand helped, that wasn’t the reason why over 90% of the people went to see the movie. If you alienate the men by making it CG, you’re left with a much higher outcome and a lower income. I can understand doing Star Wars in CG (when those movies make $924 million), but why are they making RE into CG (when those movies make $147 million). I wouldn’t be surprised if it cost them $120 million to make the CG RE movie.


Enjoy!