News Monster Hunter, Mortal Kombat And Resident Evil Director Paul W.S. Anderson Is Making A House Of The Dead Movie

Paul W.S. Anderson, known for directing video game adaptations like Monster Hunter, Mortal Kombat, and Resident Evil, is indeed working on a House of the Dead movie. Anderson will write, direct, and produce this adaptation of Sega's classic horror shooter series.

Anderson tells Deadline that he's been following the franchise for a while:

I've loved the video game since the '90s. Back then I was a big player of video games in arcades, which is how I happened upon Mortal Kombat. And pretty much at the same time, I was also playing a lot of House of the Dead. It's a title I've always loved. The IP has grown in strength, and now it's really cross-generational. I was one of the original players, but now I have teenage kids who also play. That is the real attraction for me, that you've got a cross-generational piece of IP.

I'm going to make a movie that mirrors that approach and plays out in real time, dragging the audience straight into the action. It's not going to be kind of lumbered with a whole bunch of back story that might exclude people who know nothing about House of the Dead. Everyone's going to be on the same page. Everyone's going to get sucked straight into the action and learn about the characters and the plot, as they have 90 minutes to basically escape the most extreme haunted house you've ever been in.

The original director of the video game, Takashi Oda, was very specific and never referred to them as zombies. He called them creatures. Resident Evil for example, was very clearly based upon the Romero Zombie movies. House of the Dead is something different. These are more like weaponized mutations, these incredible steroid-ed up figures that have chainsaws embedded into their limbs. It all has a very Japanese design aesthetic, related to manga and films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man, where you kind of have bits of metal and technology embedded in human mutated flesh. And these creatures are keenly intelligent, another thing that set House of the Dead apart. They're not just going to come at you slowly lumbering. They're coming from the sides, they're coming from the back. They're trying to trick you. They're trying to trap you. And the level of intelligence differs. And they're all being driven on ultimately by Dr. Curien, whose life force and intelligence lives on, almost like AI. The flesh is dead, but the mind lives on in a character called The Wheel of Fate. And he like all of the great villains from House of the Dead and Creatures, they're all named after Tarot cards. So the Wheel of Fate, Death, the Magician.

Sega was a little skeptical about getting involved in big Hollywood productions, the idea that 'they're sharks, they're going to rip us off.' But I convinced them, and working with Paramount on Sonic changed the dynamic toward our transmedia policies and since then we've been actively developing a lot of productions, looking at it as an initiative to expand the whole Sega brand. I got to know Paul and Jeremy, they're legends in terms of zombie movies, and Dmitri at Story Kitchen. They have a rare understanding of video games, and how to bring them to the screen. We want to add a cool zombie movie to the Sega transmedia basket.

The film will be based on the story of House of the Dead 3, focusing on family conflict amidst action and scares. It will follow Lisa Rogan's attempt to rescue her father and Daniel Curien dealing with the consequences of his father's actions, who caused the mutant outbreak.

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Anderson aims to create a "full-on terror ride" that mirrors the game's immersive, kinetic experience. He plans to make the movie play out in real-time, drawing inspiration from the light rail shooter gameplay of the original arcade games.

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This project marks Anderson's fourth video game adaptation, showcasing his continued interest in bringing gaming properties to the big screen. The film is still in early development, with no cast or release date announced yet.

Production is expected to begin by mid- to late-2025.

Paul W.S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt Plot Sega’s ‘The House Of The Dead’ Movie: Exclusive Concept Art

'Resident Evil's Paul W.S. Anderson will write and direct 'The House of the Dead,' a movie based on the Sega video game franchise. See the exclusive concept art

deadline.com