The first trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson’s return to the world of Resident Evil with the fifth upcoming film in the franchise, Re5ident Evil: Retribution, landed earlier this month and it looked pretty impressive. Even if you’re not a fan of the franchise, you’d have to admit that the effects are rather awesome.

We’ve now got the first teaser poster to share with you, via Collider, as well as an updated version of a piece of artwork we saw from the film just over a week ago.

“The wildly successful film franchise adaptation that has grossed nearly $700 million worldwide to the popular video game series, “Resident Evil,” returns in its highly anticipated fifth installment, “Re5ident Evil: Retribution” in state-of-the art 3D.

The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race’s last and only hope, Alice (Milla Jovovich), awakens in the heart of Umbrella’s most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex. Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun.”

Retribution will see Milla Jovovich reprising her role as Alice, with a supporting cast that includes Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine, Johann Urb as Leon Kennedy, Boris Kodjoe as Luther West, Bingbing Li as Ada Wong, and a surprise return from Michelle Rodriguez as Rain Ocampo, who starred (and seemingly died) in the first film. I’m pretty interested to see how Rodriguez will return. (Not to mention very much interested to see how she’ll return in Fast Six, but that’s a different story altogether.)

Written and directed by Anderson, the film (styled in the title both as Resident Evil: Retribution and Re5ident Evil: Retribution) will be with us in 3D on 14^th September this year, so we’ve got eight and a half more months before it hits. The last piece of artwork was unlocked by the film’s Twitter page after fans tweeted about the film with the hash-tag #ResidentEvil, getting it to trend in the US, and judging by the #ResidentEvil on this new teaser poster, I’d say that we’re in for a marketing campaign fully involving fans. More as we get it. As usual with this poster and the new image, click to enlarge. The artwork beneath the poster looks, especially, undeniably awesome.

The first teaser trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson’s return to the Resident Evil franchise with his wife and star, Milla Jovovich, landed yesterday, and if you missed it, then you can catch up on the happenings in Alice’s world right here.

In as much as the beginning of the trailer was a huge product placement ad for Sony, I thought the actual footage of the film looked pretty damn sweet. Anderson’s said that we’re to expect epic things from this fifth film, and watching the teaser really makes you believe him.

Two brilliant new images of Jovovich have now surfaced, the first from the film’s Facebook page and the second from its Twitter. As is becoming increasingly common, the ad campaign for the film is encouraging fans to get involved, and the second image was released after fans got #ResidentEvil to trend on Twitter in the US.

Written and directed by Anderson, the film – also known as Re5ident Evil: Retribution – will star Jovovich as the beloved Alice heroine, with a supporting cast that includes Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine, Johann Urb as Leon Kennedy, Boris Kodjoe as Luther West, Bingbing Li as Ada Wong, and a surprise return from Michelle Rodriguez as Rain Ocampo, who starred (and seemingly died) in the first film.

“Alice is captured by Umbrella and awakens in the heart of their operation facility; as she moves further in the complex more of her past is unveiled and continues to hunt for those responsible for the outbreak. Her quest takes her and her newfound allies from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow. After a “mind-blowing” revelation, she is forced to rethink everything she once thought to be true.”

Resident Evil: Retribution is due out in the UK in 3D on 14^th September this year, and though I still need to play catch-up from the fourth film, Resident Evil: Afterlife, I’m already looking forward to this. I like Anderson as a director, and think he’s going to be bringing us something awesome. Here are the two great new images to see if you agree. As usual, click to enlarge. And again, if you missed yesterday’s great teaser trailer, you can watch it here.

More bullet spitting vengeance in a post apocalyptic Earth for us today with zombies aplenty and only Milla Jovovich standing in the way of the planet becoming an all you can eat  buffet for the undead.

Though the zombie craze has officially passed into the realms of parody thanks to Seth Grahame-Smith there’s still a twitch of life in the corpse of Resident Evil with the latest installment, Retribution, getting a new trailer today.

Jovovich returns to front the film with Paul W. S. Anderson back behind the camera. It’s in 3D so expect weapons flung and blood to flow in your general direction.

The Devil’s Eyes uploaded the trailer from AOTS and it’s not great quality, so if you need to see every drop of zombie slobber in HD then you would do well to wait for the official release which is expected sometime later today.

Here’s the trailer, preceded by a twenty second advert for Sony. Seriously, I’ve never seen product placement so blatant.

[Update: You can now watch the trailer in HD if you head over to YouTube below, as well as in 3D!]

With all the publicity and everything we’ve been seeing lately for Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers, which you can catch up on here, it might be easy to forget that the writer-director and his wife, Milla Jovovich, are collaborating once again for the fifth instalment of the Resident Evil series, Resident Evil: Retribution.

I must admit that I’m still yet to see the fourth film (though I do own it, so it’s just a matter of time), but I like the first three films, and welcome the next in the series.

Whilst on the set of the film, Jovovich has tweeted away a new image and video, Shock Till You Drop report. The image, which Jovovich is calling, ‘What Happened To Alice?’, shows her sporting a few pretty painful looking cuts in her neck, and blood around the wound and on her face. And the video gives us a look at Johann Urb on the set as Leon Kennedy, who – if I’m not mistaken – is making his character debut in the film series, along with Boris Kodjoe who returns as Luther West.

Along with Jovovich, Urb, and Kodjoe, Retribution will also star Sienna Gullory as Jill Valentine, Shawn Roberts as Albert Wesker, Kevin Durand as Barry Burton, Li Bingbing as Ada Wong, and Michelle Rodriguez, who returns from her appearance in the first film as Rain Ocampo.

Filming is expected to continue pretty much right up until Christmas Day, so we may well be able to look forward to more set photos in the coming weeks. Retribution is set to hit cinemas on 14th September next year, and it sounds like it should be pretty interesting. Without further ado, here’s the new image followed by the video from the set.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel, The Three Musketeers, has been out in our cinemas for about a week now (you can catch up on all things Musketeers-related here), and has been out in other international markets for some time, and in spite of some mixed reviews, its gross box office totals currently stand at just shy of $50m., from an estimated $75m. budget.

It’s important to note, however, that the film is only just being released in the States today, where naturally it’s expected it will find its biggest audience. So it should make a fairly healthy return on its initial budget, I would think.

To coincide with the film’s release across the Atlantic, the film’s first five minutes have gone online over at Apple, via ComingSoon.net, to try and entice you to go and watch it. Of course, there’ll now be many here in the UK who’ve already seen the first five minutes and the next hundred and five, but for anyone who hasn’t and wants to, it’s now available for your viewing pleasure.

The film stars Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Milla Jovovich, Christoph Waltz, Orlando Bloom, and Juno Temple, and is out in both 2D and 3D, for you to choose which you prefer.

“The hot-headed young D’Artagnan (Lerman) joins forces with three rogue Musketeers (MacFadyen, Evans and Stevenson) in this reboot of Alexandre Dumas’ story. They must stop the evil Richelieu (Waltz) and face off with Buckingham (Bloom) and the treacherous Milady (Jovovich).”

I’m still yet to see it, but would quite like to see Anderson’s take on the tale. I personally don’t want to see the first five minutes of any film before I go and watch it – I’d rather see it all in one go, myself. But I’m sure there are plenty out there who would disagree, so without further ado, here’s the video should you choose to watch it ahead of going to the cinema, to get a taste of what to expect. And if you’d like to see it in glorious HD, then you can head on over to Apple here.

All this week we’ve been putting up interviews with the cast and filmmakers from the latest version of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel, The Three Musketeers. The movie has been remade numerous times with the Oliver Reed​ version probably the most famous. This new version brings together a great group of actors which I had the privileged of chatting with last week before the World Premiere.

Today we get to chat with the man at the helm himself, Director Paul. W.S. Anderson who tells me about the costume that he wore before making the movie, the amazing costumes, working with the fabulous cast and shooting on amazing locations in Germany and how he thinks The Three Musketeers and costume drams are similar sci-fi movies.

I know what you’re thinking: this recent Avengers hullabaloo is all very well and good, but could you please tell me what’s going on with Resident Evil: Retribution?

Indeed we can. On top of a slew of recent casting updates which we will get to shortly, the fivequel(?) attracted attention in the last week for an accident that took place on set, injuring sixteen zombie extras. With maladies ranging from bruising to a broken leg, a total of 12 cast and crew members were taken to hospital in Toronto as a result of the incident, which took place during the shooting of a chase sequence.

As for the aforementioned casting details, franchise star Milla Jovovich has revealed on twitter that Chinese actress Li Bingbing has been cast in the role of Ada Wong. The role of Leon Kennedy, meanwhile, will be filled by actor Johann Urb.

Bingbing and Urb join Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand and  Boris Kodjoe on the film, which is scheduled for release next September.

Coming Soon had it first.

All this week we’ve been putting up interviews with the cast and filmmakers from the latest version of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel, The Three Musketeers. The movie has been remade numerous times with the Oliver Reed​ version probably the most famous. This new version brings together a great group of actors which I had the privileged of chatting with last week before the World Premiere.

In today’s interview, we get to chat with The Three Musketeers themselves, Luke Evans (Aramis), Matthew Macfadyen (Athos) & Ray Stevenson (Porthos). In the interview, we talk about what it was like learning to fight with real swords, what it was like working with James Corden who plays Planchet and of course I manage to get in the question about Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds!

The Three Musketeers is out in UK cinemas now. Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for our final interview with Director, Paul W.S. Anderson and keep track of all our other interviews and coverage here.

All this week we’ve been putting up interviews with the cast and filmmakers from the latest version of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel, The Three Musketeers. The movie has been remade numerous times with the Oliver Reed version probably the most famous. This new version brings together a great group of actors which I had the privileged of chatting with last week before the World Premiere.

I enjoyed all of the interviews but my favourite by far was with Orlando Bloom. He’s been in so many movies and is a legend in my eyes. Often it’s difficult meeting actors as you see them on screen and can make the mistake of going in and being a bit too silly or a bit too serious and finding the balance is very hard in the 3-5 minutes that you have with them. In the case of Orlando, it was very easy from the start as soon as he welcomed me into the room.  He was very eager to find out what HeyUGuys was and ask question about me which was always a nice start! I’ve edited the video down so it’s all about the movie but he was so kind about HeyUGuys and chatting to him was an absolute pleasure.

I always had in mind to bring up Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds but you never know how well it’ll go down. With him it as a no brainer as soon as I walked in the room so have a watch of the interview below and keep your eyes peeled for the song towards the end. It was a personal life highlight and one I won’t forget in a hurry!

The Three Musketeers is released today, 12th October and our review is live here. You can also see our previous interviews and other Three Musketeers coverage here. Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow and Friday when our interviews with Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans and director, Paul W.S. Anderson will go live.

Author Alexandre Dumas’s classic novel The Three Musketeers has been done to death, time and time again. None so like this swashbuckling silliness that’s child-friendly and borrows heavily from Gulliver’s Travels and the success of the Pirates franchise.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s film centres on young hothead D’Artagnan (Lerman) – as well as lots of gadgets – who comes to Paris to become a Musketeer and encounters with his soon-to-be friends and fellow Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. The Musketeers unite to defeat a beautiful double agent, Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich), and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.

There is no denying how inventive director Anderson and co have been here, as well as injected a lot of harmless fun into the story. The 2011 version has a lot less clashing of swords and far more amazing flying machines – Anderson admitted to his and the production team’s fascination with Germanic contraptions of centuries past at the London press conference. It’s still a shame, though, as the Musketeering quad of Macfadyen (Athos), Stevenson (Porthos), Lerman (D’Artagnan) and Evans (Aramis) makes for a fine group of hearty personalities with some comical banter that gets a little overshadowed by all the gadgets on show – all in order to keep the youngsters engaged, presumably.

It’s also very much a ‘Jovovich show’ – she’s married to Anderson who made her a star in Resident Evil. As the female villain of the piece, Jovovich fares better at being devilish than her male counterparts, but her Matrix slow-mo copycat moves and sporadic catwalk posing and TV make-up ad close-ups tire easily. Anderson appears to be steering Jovovich’s career in a different comedy direction – or getting his missus involved in films that they and their kids can sit down together and watch.

Typecast as a baddie since he burst onto the international scene as Col. Hans Landa in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Christoph Waltz does his best, bored villainous piece as the cunning Richelieu and is always a pleasure to watch. It’s the other dastardly men in this, Orlando Bloom as the cocky Duke of Buckingham and Mads Mikkelsen as the war-mongering Rochefort who are most disappointing. Bloom seems woefully ill equipped and miscast to play a conceited villain, while Bond baddie Mikkelsen’s is easily overlooked and pretty much forgotten. Basically, there is not enough theatrics from both to match the film’s goofy sentiment.

Talking of panto, Freddie Fox is a surprise tonic as young King Louis, making the part his own in a vulnerably eccentric manner, and portraying a younger monarch that is more fitting to the time period. His presence outshines that of Bloom’s, even when he doesn’t utter a word. It’s a credit to Fox’s talent and an exciting premise for like roles to come.

Fans of Pirates and Gulliver’s Travels may be tempted by this giddy adaptation, but those who hold the tales of the Musketeers dearly to heart may feel a little wanting.

***~~ (3/5)

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For all our coverage of The Three Musketeers including interviews with the cast, click here.

Last week,  I got to chat with many of the cast from brand new movie, The Three Musketeers which hits UK cinemas this tomorrow, 12th October. Yesterday, we put up the interview with Milla Jovavich and today all those fans of Logan Lerman get a treat as we speak to him and two of his co-stars about the movie.

Joining Logan who plays D’Argtagnan in the movie were Gabriella Wilde who plays Constance and Freddie Fox who plays King Louis. In the interview, we spoke about the amazing costume design, the sword fighting sequences and the similarities that there were for Logan in filming The Three Musketeers and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I’d met Logan at the junket for that movie and chatting with him is always a treat as he’s such a nice guy.

I also ask the trio if any of them watched Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds when they were growing up. Alas they didn’t but did give me a tip that Luke Evans did a great version of the song. Keep your eyes peeled for the rest of the week when the other interview hit for more on that!

This week sees the release of Paul W.S. Anderson’s energetic take on Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers and a few days ago Dave had the chance to sit down with the director and his cast to talk about this new version of the classic story.

While this is a world away from the zombie hijinks of the Resident Evil series Anderson has infused 17th Century France with some of the same coup-de-pied derrière he is known for and its no surprise that Milla Jovovich pops up in the formidable role of Milady de Winter and wields her sword with the best of them.

This is the first of our Three Musketeers video interviews, check back every day this week for more.

Here’s the video,

This evening, Ben and I headed to London’s Westfield Shopping Centre to attend the World Premiere of EOne’s new movie, The Three Musketeers. Many of the cast and filmmakers were present including Orlando Bloom, Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Luke Evans, Ray Stevenson, Freddie Fox, Gabriella Wilde, Milla Jovovich and her husband who also directs the movie, Paul W.S. Anderson. We also spoke to one of the writers of the movie,  Alex Litvak, one of the Producers, Jeremy Bolt and Evanna Lynch of Harry Potter fame who was attending the premiere as she was a fan of the movies. We got to chat with most of them about the film, why the got involved and what we can look forward to seeing when it hits the UK on October 12th.

As an aside, we asked Ray Stevenson about whether he’ll be appearing in any upcoming Marvel movies i.e. The Avengers. He steers us off into telling us about filming G.I. Joe 2 but ends saying ‘he is very hard to kill off’ with a semi nod and a wink so we’re wondering if that does indeed mean we’ll see him next summer.

I also spent today at the junket getting 1:1 interviews with all the above so hopefully if we didn’t get the answer you were looking for at the premiere, you’ll get it next week when the interviews go live. In the meantime, have a watch of the premiere footage and interviews below and scroll down to view my collection of photos which you can click to enlarge.

Everything we’ve seen so far for Paul W.S. Anderson’s anticipated adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel has been pretty damn brilliant, from the film’s first trailer at the start of the year to its character posters, and a fair bit more.

We’ve now got a fantastic new clip to share with you from the film, courtesy of IMDB, that shows its female lead, M’lady De Winter (Milla Jovovich) showing the musketeers how to get things done. And she looks awesome doing it, another great role for Jovovich, who is incidentally of course married to Anderson, the pair being long-time collaborators since 2002’s Resident Evil.

“Synopsis: The hot-headed young D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) joins forces with three rogue Musketeers (Matthew MacFadyen, Luke Evans and Ray Stevenson) in this reboot of Alexandre Dumas’ story. They must stop the evil Richlieu (Christoph Waltz) and face off with Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) and the treacherous Milady (Milla Jovovich). The action adventure is given a state of the art update in 3-D.”

The film clearly has a terrific cast filling every role, and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out. Anderson’s a great director in my books, and it looks like he’s made an immense movie with this project. Its 12th October release date is rapidly approaching, so thankfully it’s not long to wait at all before we can see it. Without further ado, here’s the new clip, entitled, “What?” Enjoy.

We got the first trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson’s upcoming adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel, The Three Musketeers, back in March this year, and it was utterly awesome, promising so much for the film.

Since then, we’ve seen plenty of great things from the film, including a full set of character banners and most recently a TV spot, that have only increased my desire to see it.

Now, courtesy of IMP Awards, we’ve got a great new poster for the film to share with you, ahead of its 12th October release here in the UK. Admittedly, it’s pretty similar in its design to this UK quad poster that we’ve already seen, but it is nonetheless immensely awesome and has some great additions to that quad poster too – most notably, the ridiculously cool flying gunships in the sky.

“Synopsis: The hot-headed young D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) joins forces with three rogue Musketeers (Matthew MacFadyen, Luke Evans and Ray Stevenson) in this reboot of Alexandre Dumas’ story. They must stop the evil Richlieu (Christoph Waltz) and face off with Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) and the treacherous Milady (Milla Jovovich). The action adventure is given a state of the art update in 3-D.”

The cast is terrific, and Anderson is such a great director, so I can’t wait for this to come out. Just a few more weeks, and then we can all go and revel in its awesomeness. Until then, here’s the new poster to enjoy.

The brilliant writer and director David Twohy is best known for teaming up with the awesome Vin Diesel to create the cult anti-hero, Riddick, in 2000’s Pitch Black and the 2004 follow-up, The Chronicles of Riddick.

A third film, tentatively titled simply Riddick, has been in the pipeline for some time now, and we’ve recently been getting some nice concept art for the film with hopes that production will soon be starting.

Collider are now reporting that Twohy, whose last film was the lesser-known little gem A Perfect Getaway, is on the cusp of getting his next screenplay, The Leonardo Job, financed, and taking the director’s job for himself too.

“An action thriller about the heist of the “lost” Leonardo da Vinci painting “The Battle of Anghiari”; the story involves two rival master thieves hired to go to Florence to track down the “mythical” painting. These experts use high tech and old tricks to prove the painting exists and pinpoint its location – hidden behind another masterpiece.  They are forced to combine skills when their schemes to steal the painting get more complicated and dangerous after they discover they are not the only ones pursuing the hidden treasure.”

It certainly sounds pretty different from what we’ve seen from Twohy so far. But A Perfect Getaway was also a big change in direction from his previous film, The Chronicles of Riddick, and I thought he did a fantastic job directing both, so clearly he’s a director capable of working in different genres. And I’m really looking forward to seeing him take on the heist genre, because everybody loves a good heist film.

I’m interested to see how well-known a cast Twohy will get for this film. Milla Jovovich and Timothy Olyphant both did a fantastic turn for the director in A Perfect Getaway, and for me the pair would quite possibly be the perfect casting in the lead roles for The Leonardo Job. But there’s probably a good chance that will just remain a dream (along with the chance that the two leads will be male), but I can always hope. The third Riddick dream has felt like an impossibility for years, but it seems to be finally coming together, so I can dream.

It’s not yet known whether The Leonardo Job moving ahead will cause any delays to Riddick’s production, but let’s all keep our fingers crossed that Twohy can get the latter shot and in the can before getting to work on the former. Because as much as I love a good heist film, I cannot wait to see Vin Diesel back in action in Riddick. More news on both projects as and when we get it.

Every time we post something on Paul W.S. Anderson’s 3D reinvention of Alexandre Dumas’ classic swords and moustaches masterpiece The Three Musketeers there is a small pang of sadness that Hollywood hasn’t yet seized on the obvious big screen adaptaion of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, if only for the Moby reworking of the theme song.

Yet this serving of Resident Evil in Corsets is almost upon us and there’s a new TV spot and poster out which emboldeneds the view that Anderson and Co. are hoping for a Sherlock Holmes style reinvention of a literary classic.

Anderson’s trump card may lay in his cast, with Christoph Waltz looking likely to walk all over the rest of the mob* yet there’s one too many lingering shots of Milla Jovovich leaping through the air, engaging in some crazy swordplay for my liking.

Anyhoo, this may very well be the best adaptation of the tale ever, still – it’s no Dogtanian.

Here’s your trailer and poster, courtesy of IMPA.

*said mob includes Logan Lerman , Milla Jovovich, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Mads Mikkelson, Gabriella Wilde, Juno Temple with Orlando Bloom to give you an idea.

Last month, while conveying Bloody Disgusting’s reports that Milla Jovovich and Paul W. S. Anderson were officially locked in for Resident Evil: Retribution, we also paid lip-service to the travesty rumours indicating that Sienna Guillory’s (Apocalypse’s Jill Valentine) involvement was a little less certain.

We were, you might say, more than a little miffed. Why, we asked, why bring back an actress for a passing pre-credits cameo in last year’s Resident Evil: Afterlife if you were planning to re-cast her role for the sequel?

As it happens, however, it looks as though Screen Gems have come to their senses and cast Guillory in the role anyway, with Jovovich tweeting the news earlier today (via Bloody Disgusting):

i can’t reply right now, but wanted 2 let u all know that Sienna Guillory @guillorybe closed her deal on the new RE movie! we r so excited!!

For everyone who’s not Jovovich’s English teacher, this is great news. With the cast suddenly full of characters you wouldn’t be crazy to care about, this franchise finally looks set to blow any guilt out of its inherent pleasure. I do believe the word is “squeeeeee…!”

Resident Evil: Retribution, about to start filming in Toronto, Japan and the Russia, is currently slated for a September release, 2012.

By about fourth year of university, I was more than a little sick of the psychological condition known to textbooks as prosopagnosia. Good thing then, that Julien Magnat has decided to cut out all the boring bits, rename it “face blindness” and give Milla Jovovich yet another memory problem.

After losing her memory in Resident Evil and, well, whatever the Hell happened in Fifth Element (it’s been so long!), Jovovich is set to lose her ability to distinguish between human faces in new thriller Faces in the Crowd (via Bloody Disgusting).

“The story centers on a woman (Jovovich) who barely survives an attack by a serial killer and wakes up in hospital with a head injury that leaves her “face-blind.” No longer able to recognize faces, she must navigate a world in which facial features change each time she loses sight of them. All the while the killer is closing in, determined to eliminate the potential witness.“

Co-starring Julian McMahon, Michael Shanks, David Atrakchi, Sarah Wayne Callies and Marianne Faithful, Faces in the Crowd will be distributed by First Look in the U.S.

Is it just me or does Prosopagnosia have a better ring to it?

Resident Evil is my guilty pleasure franchise, a series of films that regardless of quality never fail to deliver the goods.

It pleases me therefore to convey the news that the saga is set to continue with its star and two-time director firmly in check. Bloody Disgusting is reporting that Anderson will direct Resident Evil: Retribution from his own screenplay, in anticipaton of a September 14, 2012, release.

Less certain, however, is the future for Sienna Guillory’s Jill Valentine. While the actress recently announced over twitter that she was set to return following her mid-credits appearance at the end of last year’s Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D, word on the street has it that the character is being recast.

Having appeared in the largely discredited second instalment, it seems a little short-sighted to bring her back for such a brief cameo two films later only to recast Valentine in preparation for a larger role in this latest instalment, especially when the actress in question is so open to a return.

The new actress – if indeed the part is recast – wouldn’t be the only actor joining the cast, however, as Anderson tries to introduce more of the gaming franchise’s fan favourites. Both Barry Burton and Leon Scott Kennedy will join the ensemble, having featured in the game series as U.S. Government agent and Raccoon City police officer respectively.

Resident Evil: Retribution, which will chart Alice’s arrival to Tokyo, Japan, will start shooting this October.