I found an interesting article from before the first Resident Evil movie came out

[Rombie]

I'd certainly like to see said report of this if you have any idea on the source as in 15 years this is the first I heard of it, and I was the one who put the first draft online around that time.

[MeganGrass]

to say it would have been a terrible movie cannot be accurate based on the script. movies go through countless changes during the whole production process.

romero, despite his newer works, is a zombie film god.

George Romero is spectacular; "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead" are all great. Anything after that is... stale, putting it politely. Most Romero movies all follow the same formula:

1 - Remote/Desolate location
2 - Extremely random characters/development
3 - "Society/Morality Issue" plot-line

That said, having read it, my opinion is that Romero's script wasn't unique enough. It would have played like a "of the Dead" spin-off, and those simply don't sell. In fact, they're released 'straight-to-dvd', last I checked. I want to see a good 'mansion-ver' RE movie someday, but Romero just can't deliver. :/



...people would find reasons to hate a Romero version, anyway.

[ronin_akikage]

Okay, sorry this took so long. Originally, I read the two reviews on Dark Horizons. I returned to their site earlier and discovered that they delete older news articles older than 10 years....

So I began searching.... It took a google search of "resident evil script dismemberment" to actually bring up a result that had a copy of the Dark Horizons article. I found it here http://www.reocities.com/amon_pax/georgeresident.html. Turns out the article was originally from 1999, and NOT 2000-2002, like I originally though, which explains why you may not have heard of it. I believe you released the script on the net in 2001? Now just for your viewing pleasure, here is the excert itself:

George A. Romero's Draft: This script was okay. It was not wonderful and had a sort of unsatisfactory ending, but It was tense and had some good characters. Contrary to the game, the lead character Chris Redfield is a guy from around town, and not a member of the elite S.T.A.R.S. And Jill Valentine is the leader of the S.T.A.R.S. team. What happens is that through the night one by one, the alpha and bravo team are attacked and killed by the zombies lurking inside the house. There's one twist though. The zombies are invicible and can only be killed by total dismemberment. This brings up the idea, to blow up the boiler and kill all of them.

2nd Draft: This one follows the game almost exactly. The zombies can only be killed by a shot through the head. All of the characters seem like the same person. There are continous scenes were Jill and Chris wonder into rooms filled with corpses. Wich makes you wonder why there were so many people in one mansion. The film relies on the story of the Umbrella company using the corpses for some genetic disease. By the end of the movie everyone, but Chris and Jill are dead. With no explanation, (except for a letter from a deceased person) Chris and Jill must fight a big evil monster. Of course once they kill the monster all the zombie's die. Weren't they dead to begin with. They couldn't go around the house and kill every zombie, because then the movie would be too long. This draft is horrible at best. It never really takes off, and becomes scary. It always has an unsuspecting someone being grabbed by a zombie and being chewed up in front of your very own eyes. They really should have stayed with the George A. Romero draft and worked on making it better.

The Romero draft sounds like a different draft than what was released. Also, I think I screwed up about the Albert Wesker/Tyrant bit.... that may have been from the McElroy draft, though once again I could be wrong.

As far as I know, there are a total of 5 possible drafts for Resident Evil before they got to Anderson, though with bare minimum details, it could be less. Below is a list of possible drafts that I know of, in which each sound different than before:

Alan B. McElroy: Adapts the game for the most part, except S.T.A.R.S. is formed at the beginning as a government unit, headed by what comprises Alpha Team in the game. Bravo team in this script is a Raccoon City S.W.A..T. team destroyed at the mansion. Brad Vickers is actually not a soldier, but undercover to attempt rescuing his girlfriend Rebecca Chambers. Wesker is an asylum patient, chosen to lead the mission. There's a Jill Valentine shower scene, a scene where mutated bees attack characters in an elevator, and a scene where characters fight a giant spider while zombies attempt to break in the room. I believe at the end, Wesker is infected and becomes what we know of as the Tyrant.

Unknown draft (Kevin Williamson?): Only thing I know is that it takes place in the near future, where Umbrella has cured all diseases. They construct the T-Virus and hold the world at ransom for the cure. The virus leaks into Raccoon City and a team must go and get the cure. THIS COULD ALSO BE PART OF MCELROY DRAFT, as this was all I ever heard from on this script, but never any of the McElroy details listed above.

Romero 1st Draft: What is available online. Thanks, Rombie.

Romero Draft: What is listed above, though could be a fake claim.

"2nd Draft": Writer unknown. Listed in the review above. Could be fake.

Now as for the two reviews above. While Dark Horizons checks their claims, and tend to catch fake reports rather quickly, it is possible that the two storylines above were fake. Only Romero could verify the above claim for his script, as well as Alan B. McElroy. The other writers are unknown, though at one time I possibly heard Kevin Williamson's (Scream) name attached as a script writer for one of the drafts. I will not vouche for any of these claims; I'm only posting what I know, what I've read, and what I remember.

[Rombie]

Yeah I have actually read that before via the same copypasta from Homepage of the Dead and also on ComingSoon. I was never able to confirm nor source it. Definently wasn't before my time though, been doing this since 1997.

Where does the McElroy details come from as far as script content? Other than he was attached in first English announcements and that he was dropped by mid 99 I never found anymore unless I had another brain fart and overlooked it.

The unknown one about the cured all diseases/unleashed virus one was post Romero when Jamie Blanks was attached. Again never confirmed, just rumoured.

[ronin_akikage]

The McElroy details I have to really dig to find since that's before Romero. I believe they were leaked not long before they scrapped him when a review was posted. I will try to dig it up, but we are starting to get into 14 year old news stories, which sadly, a lot of this is being lost.

My summary was rather brief compared to how they described the plot, though if it had been made it would have been only slightly better than the Anderson films from judging the review. It boiled down to being a zombie action film, and most of the characters were changed. It also seemed to be a possible jumping off point for Romero's "S.T.A.R.S. are undercover government spec-ops" concept, as all the characters seemed to have civilian jobs. Barry Burton was described as a resturant owner.

Over the years, have you attempted to track down any of the other drafts, or was Romero's script the only one you sought? I would imagine that if they still exist, they might be able to be collected from the various writers at this point, who may be eager for fans to read their own concepts for the film... Or maybe not.

[ronin_akikage]

So I found it.... had to eventually search for "Resident Evil McElroy Jill Shower" to finally snatch a result. Turns out, the info came from PSM magazine. The post I found it for, was from January 1999, so it's probably from the December or January issue. Anyway, I copied the article that was posted (on a Google groups site that I had to go through wayback machine).... Anyone care to find the issue to confirm?

Anyway, the issue:

RESIDENT EVIL: THE MOVIE
Article comes from PSM (Playstation Magazine)

After reading last month's article on videogame moviews in this very section, a PSM fan involved with the Resident Evil has leaked a copy of the script into our eager hands. The version of the script that we got may have not been the final shooting version, but it is one of the later revisions."

The story is written by Alan McElroy, the same guy who wrote the Spawn movie. While it's definitely not the greatest screenplay ever written, it does manage to capture the feel of the game quite well, and may turn out to be a pretty good movie -- especially for action/horror buffs. WARNING: If you do not want us to spoil what happens, do not read any further. But if you are a big Resident Evil fan like us, you have to know what the movie is going to be like!

It all starts off with a disturbance in the Raccoon Forest, where strange animals are mutilating campers and park rangers. A S.W.A.T team is sent in and is quickly destroyed by the mysterious creatures in the forest. At this point, the government gets involved. It recruits Wesker (who is in an asylum for some reason that is never explained) to break into a lab in the forest, presumably to rescue some scientists there. Wesker recruits his team members based on the specialties: Barry Barton is the all around military expert who has retired and now runs a restaurant, Chris Redfield is the expert at combat, Jill Valentine is a munition expert, and Brad Vickers is the medic. Unknown to the rest of the team, however, is that Brad is actually an imposter named Mike-- he is trying to find his girlfriend Becky, who was on the original S.W.A.T team sent into Raccoon Forest.

The team sets down in Raccoon forest and is almost immediately attacked by wild mutated dogs. They make a run for the lab.mansion in the middle of the forest and just barely make it there alive. They all get inside of the mansion, and that;s where things really heat up. They confront more of the dogs, along with giant wasps, tarantulas, and of course, zombies. It's all-out tension and action as the group keeps losing members to each new threat, and ammo runs lower and lower. Eventually they find the scientist they are supposed to rescue, and it turns out that the whole situation was an insiduous trap. They were to be infected with the T-virus and then allowed to escape to spread the virus to the rest of the world. Jill and Chris (the only ones left) get a hold of the antidote and escape from the building just as it is exploding, only to be persued by the tyrant (who actually turns out to be a mutated Wesker). They finally fight off the Tyrant, take the antidote, and walk off into the sunset.

The films current form is ultra violent. It will be interesting to see whether it's toned down for a PG-13 rating, or if the director just goes all-out for an "R". It is also interesting to note that no mention is made of either the S.T.A.R.S. team or Umbrella Corp. But overall, the screenplay is a good basis for a potentially great movie, and we can't wait to see how it turns out!"

MEMORABLE SCENES:
While the movie's dialog isn't exactly top-notch, quite a few tense scenes stand out.

- Team members sneak their way across a room filled with corpses that might be zombies (ooo, creepy!).
- A giant spider corners the team when they run out of ammo, with zombies also about to bust in.
- Team members get trapped in a service elevator, where they are surrounded by mutated hornets.
- And what RE movie would be complete without a Jill Valentine shower scene?

Alan McElroy /Screenwriter/ Spawn (1997), Halloween 4: The Return of Micheal Meyers (1988)
Bernd Eichingerr /Producer/ Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), Ballerman 6 (1997)
George Sluizer /Director/ The Vanishing (1993), Crimetime (1996), The Commissioner (1998)

Anyway, there it is... I was wrong about a few details, but then again, my memory has problems when remembering 14 year old articles. Ah well....

[Deathlygasm]

Damn this is awesome hard to believe they rejected all these drafts yet went with Andersons! Then again either they gave up by that point or they knew Andersons draft would make way more money then the other ones. What some also don't know is that Andersons draft was originally being written as a prequel but that idea got thrown out once RE0 was announced

[ronin_akikage]

Whether you like Anderson's work or not (I don't), he is known for being an amazing showman when pitching his film concepts. When he pitched Alien vs. Predator, he even hired an artist to do several paintings of set pieces and action scenes from the script. This is the same style that George Lucas used when pitching Star Wars originally to 20th Century Fox.

I am really interested in the other scripts for Resident Evil... They'd at least be an interesting read.

[Deathlygasm]

Probably the main reason many of the monster didn't make it into the first RE film was due to a limited budget I am sure Anderson did have intentions to do more with him film

[ronin_akikage]

I don't know. I would imagine he wrote his script based on an idea of what the budget was, and knew that there was no way to get so many monsters on screen. Also, I have to agree on that. From a film perspective, having so many various monsters (such as McElroy or Romero's drafts) not only waters down the mosters themselves - how many appearances can you really have of zombies, crows, spiders, etc - but also, it could be confusing or unbelievable to an average audience that can't accept the virus having so many random effects on different lifeforms. At least for the first few films there was a connection and a logic between monsters. Zombies were from exposure, Lickers from direct injection, Nemesis was a surgical project, etc.

I know that his original script for the first sequel (originally known as Resident Evil: Nemesis) had a more ambitious plot and set pieces. If I remember correctly, it was originally three separate plots (Alice, Jill, Claire!) and that throughout the film each character had their own storyline, but met up at the end at a trainyard for the climax. Most of what was filmed is the slimmed/watered down version where they rewrote the scenes so characters met up earlier, Claire was cut out, etc. There was a rumor Chief Irons had a cameo. Nemesis may have been a connecting point between them, or could have only been in Jill or Alice's scenario. I'm guessing they meet up at the trainyard during the deal to deliver the little girl. Not sure what else was changed. Probably the only Anderson script I wanna read. Also, FYI the scientist in Resident Evil that mentions the Nemesis program was William Birkin, played by Jason Issacs. In the sequel, the scientist named Dr. Issacs was originally William Birkin, but after they couldn't get Jason Issacs back to fill the role they renamed the character in his honor.

[Deathlygasm]

Damn I didn't know that Anderson had a rejected draft to RE2

[Lanzagranadas]

I still can´t understand how that guy made five movies called "Resident Evil" (and how people keep watching them)

Once I have read a full translation of the original script for the first movie from Romero and it was much more enjoyable just read that than watching the Anderson´s version in the screen.

[ccrogers15]

To think we could of had something cool.
Shame.

Dont get me wrong, i loved RE and RE 2: Apocolypse, because it explored a different version of the events of RE1 and RE3, Sadly, RE Extinction and any film after just sucked bad.

[ronin_akikage]

Well I wouldn't call it "rejected". More like "hey, can you cut this, this, this, this, this, and this cause we can't afford it". Not too different than Romero's original Day of the Dead. He only filmed half the material, combined and cut characters, and slimmed down the sets. Also, don't forget that he didn't direct, so the director of Apocalypse probably changed things as he saw fit as well.

[Rombie]

I had noted in my research details the Jan 99 PSM issue but all I had sources from it was listed rumours regarding the film because that's what most people reported as, not this full quote which is awesome. That's much more interesting than I'd originally expected. May have to amend my article but I am still awaiting a post. I am going to send you a link ronin, see if you can see any other gaps in it.

As for hunting down scripts, I tried for further drafts and more info via Romero's defunct website that a family member was in charge of. I was able to confirm the script I had was his and Peter's original draft but my other questions weren't answered. All I saw otherwise was when George put a rant up about all the unfinished projects he was attached to.

I have never tried contacting Sluzier, McElroy, or Blanks for further comment or scripts. The latter are probably on twitter and probably would give info up if they can. But I never bother pestering people on it. Lol