Austin Abrams goes from Weapons thief to Resident Evil courier — then inside a whale
Austin Abrams leads Zach Cregger's Resident Evil reboot as Bryan, a medical courier caught in a fight to stay alive, after a first three days that brought in $60 million in ticket sales, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, written and directed by Cregger, opened in theatres on September 18, 2026, according to Deadline. It runs 1 hour 30 minutes.
Bryan's ordinary shift turns extreme. He is juggling an organ delivery with a difficult call with his girlfriend Michelle about her newly discovered pregnancy when he is pulled into what Sony Pictures describes as an action-packed, non-stop race for survival. Sony presents the film as a completely new story, according to Sony Pictures.
That fresh start matters. The reboot is associated with Constantin Film and Columbia Pictures, with Robert Kulzer credited as a producer. It does not continue a previous screen storyline.
The pairing reunites Cregger and Abrams after Weapons. Abrams played an unhoused junkie thief in that horror film. He stayed with the project in 2023 after Cregger lost his initial cast amid strike-related scheduling chaos. Amy Madigan later won the best supporting actress Oscar for Weapons.
Cregger has said he felt as assured about the Resident Evil ending kicker as he did about the climax of Weapons, according to TIME. Cregger and Abrams also discussed sequel ideas and addressed sceptical game fans and their Weapons connection in a September 4, 2026 interview with The Playlist.
Abrams is not pausing. His survival thriller Whalefall, directed by Brian Duffield, arrives Oct. 16. He plays Jay, a scuba diver who is swallowed whole by a sperm whale.
He told The Hollywood Reporter both shoots were really challenging to work on. Resident Evil had more laughs, he said, because its comedy helped lighten the load.
What makes this stand out is the pace of it. One month Abrams is running through Raccoon City with a cooler in hand. The next he is inside a whale. For fans, this means two very different survival stories back to back from the same leading man.
