More than 20 years after fellow video game adaptation auteur Uwe Boll last adapted House Of The Dead, Paul W.S. Anderson is taking a crack at the property. Initially announced in 2024, Anderson’s version of Sega’s classic first-person zombie shoot-’em-up is still showing signs of life, casting Isabela Merced, who is well-versed in adaptations of popular zombie games. Merced recently starred in Superman and, more relevantly, The Last Of Us, HBO’s Emmy-nominated zombie TV show that seems to be bringing the genre back from the dead.
Unlike Boll, who directed an adaptation of Sega’s hit video game in 2003, Anderson, as his wont, finds himself drawn to the games’ elaborate mythology, which could serve as the basis for an entire run of films, not unlike his billion-dollar-grossing Resident Evil movies. To wit, Anderson envisions “this as the start of a tentpole franchise which can explore the rich world and lore that Sega has created over a whole series of films” with “Isabela at its heart.” According to Deadline, the series is a “top Sega priority,” along with facilitating Sonic the Hedgehog’s crippling chilidog addiction.
It is nice to see the old boys of schlocky 2000s video game adaptations crossing paths yet again. Back in 2003, less than a decade after Anderson revolutionized the genre with Mortal Kombat, the first game-to-screen movie people didn’t completely hate, Boll dragged the genre back to the depths. It shouldn’t be too much of a lift for Anderson to overcome Boll’s legacy, especially considering how efficient a blockbuster director Anderson has become over the intervening years. But what we’d really like to see, even more than another version of House Of The Dead, is Uwe Boll getting back to what matters: Challenging people to boxing matches. Boll vs. Anderson would raise a lot of money for charity.