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Anderson described Afterlife as “the one that’s been most heavily influenced by the imagery, and the story, and the characters of the videogame. Certainly more so than any movie since the first one.” The film does include a lot of elements from Resident Evil 5, such as the game’s lead character, Chris Redfield, and his adversary Wesker is also now seen in action (a villain so bad ass that he wears sunglasses indoors). As well as Majini undead creatures there is also The Executioner (credited in the film by his more popular name, The Axe Man). There’s no explanation as to what he’s doing in LA, or how he knows where Alice and Claire are. That he was featured in all the trailers and TV spots was the film’s way of saying, “pay for a 3D ticket, and you’ll experience a humongous axe thrown in your general direction.” Claire also joins Alice in her fight with The Executioner (enter Player 2?) and both “share” the use of Alice’s shotgun. In the conclusion Chris and Claire are both seen battling Wesker. Seeing multiple characters blasting zombies is nothing new, but this method of lead characters working together to eliminate a ‘boss’ goes some way to replicating the co-op experience found in Resident Evil 5, as well as the Chronicles titles, and to an extent Resident Evil: Zero.

The inclusion of the mind altering P30 Scarab device from the game is seen used in the film on Claire Redfield and Jill Valentine. In fact the inclusion of Sienna Guillory’s cameo as Jill Valentine (who was absent in Extinction) came about due to a strong response from fans. Anderson said, “We definitely listened to fans who missed her in the third movie and really wanted to see her make a return. And also she had made such a strong impact in Resident Evil 5, the videogame, when she came back as “Evil Jill”, that we thought it would be great to bring her back.”

Released in September 2010, on the week that Afterlife opened in the US it was the only new film on wide release. Reviews predictably slammed the film, but the critics should have known by now that they weren’t going to have any effect. It opened to $26.6 million and raked in $60.1 million domestic; the highest for the franchise so far, though this is mostly down to the increased cost for a 3D ticket.

3D is a big seller internationally, too (boosting the likes of Step-Up 3D’s worldwide gross as well as saving the 3D converted Gulliver’s Travels). I doubt anyone expected Afterlife to gross $236 million overseas. When looking at the overseas gross of each film, Japan always comes out on top (Apocalypse and Extinction earned over $20 million there). Given that it is the birthplace of the videogame franchise, this is no surprise. However, Afterlife earned a surprising $55.1 million from Japan alone. As well as the 3D, this is probably down to the marketing promoting that it features singer/actress Mika Nakashima in the opening sequence. While her appearance amounts to nothing more than a cameo, she managed to get her own character poster in Japan and will appear again in the fifth film. Overall, the film accumulated a worldwide gross of $296.2 million, twice as much as the previous film. It’s a total that eclipses the worldwide takings of 2010 blockbusters such as Salt, Shutter Island, The Expendables and Knight & Day.

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