The upcoming Resident Evil reboot is just around the corner, with a September 18 release date, and fans are understandably eager to find out what this brand-new installation has in store. Now, the runtime of the movie has seemingly been revealed, and it may very well confirm what the director of the film, Zach Cregger, . Thus far, it has been teased that this Resident Evil movie will bring something different to the larger franchise, including what prior Resident Evil movies have done, by telling its own original story (still set in the same universe) rather than fully adapting a story from the games.
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Cregger has also confirmed that the movie will follow one character “from Point A to Point B” and suggested that the film is going to hit the ground running and maintain momentum the entire time. With AMC’s recent reveal of the movie’s runtime, it seems Cregger is indeed keeping true to his word in one critical way, and although it might make fans of the franchise unhappy at first, this is honestly a much better approach than the alternative
Resident Evil’s Pacing Will Be Breakneck Speed—And That’s The Right Call
AMC’s homepage for Resident Evil (2026) indicates an (unsurprising) R-rating, the September 18 release date, and a much more unexpected runtime of 1 hour and 35 minutes. That’s a shockingly tight timeframe for a narrative on the big screen, especially compared to blockbusters in franchises like DC and the MCU, which have put out numerous movies with multi-hour runtimes. Granted, this isn’t going to be Avengers: Endgame, but this is still a much shorter film than many were expecting. Undoubtedly, there is going to be shock in response to this news, but it’s actually a great sign.
It would have been all too easy for this movie to have hit closer to the two-hour mark, and that may even be what audiences were expecting. However, with just an hour and a half on the screen, Cregger seems to be genuinely committed to a fast-paced, action-packed story, which is exactly what Resident Evil should be. Presumably, with this timing, the movie will have very little time for drawn out plot lines and boring moments that bridge more interesting scenes—something that can certainly be an issue in action movies. Rather, this runtime reveal seems like it all but guarantees that the reboot will be a true thrill.
Sure, there may be lingering disappointment that audiences aren’t getting more time out of Resident Evil even with this in mind, and the full implications of this runtime obviously won’t be known until the movie actually hits theaters, but the truth is that it’s so much better to have a compact, fast-moving narrative than it is to have a longer movie that ambles along. In the long-run, hopefully audiences will see that this was absolutely the right call (and, hopefully, Resident Evil confirms that these assumptions are correct).
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