A new featurette for Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City puts Leon S. Kennedy (Avan Jogia) in the spotlight, highlighting which version of the hero writer and director Johannes Roberts wanted to bring to theaters. Leon’s featurette is the third character vignette Sony Pictures Entertainment releases in three days, with the two previous videos focused on Kaya Scodelario’s Claire Redfield and Robbie Amell’s Chris Redfield. That means we can probably expect new videos focused on Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen), Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper), and Ada Wong (Lily Gao) soon.
In the new featurette, Roberts explains how Welcome to Raccoon City “wanted to go back to the original second game," where Leon was “quite a nerdy, reluctant hero." Roberts also says instead of looking for an actor who looked like Leon from the games, he was searching for someone who could bring the classic Leon’s personality to life. In the director’s words, “we did not want someone that looked identical to the games, but had no emotional connection.”
While it’s interesting to understand the process that leads to casting choices in Welcome to Raccoon City, the featurette also shows Leon using a rocket launcher, one of the most classic weapons in the entire franchise. So, while Roberts took some liberties with Claire’s story, Welcome to Raccoon City is also very concerned with homaging the game franchise that started it all.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City will follow the events of the franchise’s first two games when a deadly virus causes a zombie outbreak in the titular city. Welcome to Raccoon City cast also includes Neal McDonough as William Berkins, Marins Mazepa as Lisa Trevor, and Donal Logue as Raccoon City Police Chief Brian Irons.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is being produced by Constantin Film, the same company behind Netflix’s live-action Resident Evil series focused on brand-new characters. As both adaptations of the Resident Evil franchise share the same producer, there’s a possibility they take place in the same universe.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City hit theaters on November 24. Check out the new featurette below.
Here’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City’s official synopsis:
In Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, the once booming home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation, Raccoon City is now a dying Midwestern town. The company’s exodus left the city a wasteland…with great evil brewing below the surface. When that evil is unleashed, a group of survivors must work together to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night.