Development After the release of
Resident Evil: Afterlife, director Paul W. S. Anderson was in discussion with Screen Gems of filming the fifth and sixth film
back to back. But Anderson later decided to just focus on
Resident Evil: Retribution. The film's fight sequences were influenced by
Asian cinema. "We watched a lot of
Thai movies this time around because of the movies (Powell) has done," says Anderson. "He did
The Last Samurai as well. He has worked with a lot of Japanese stuntmen and he has worked with a lot of
Hong Kong stuntmen. But we felt the area that hadn't been mined by western cinema much was that whole kind of high impact Thai style of fighting. So we just watched a lot of action sequences from a lot of Thai movies. There were moves and just a general feel that we thought we could infuse the movie with. You know, that kind of bone crunch where you really feel the impact. We tried to bring that into the movie, which is also good for 3D because obviously 3D makes it harder to sell those kind of fake phony punches because you see the distance between the fist and the face. So that kind of Thai style of fighting where you actually make contact is a lot stronger."
Casting in promotion of
Resident Evil: Retribution Returning from the previous film are: Milla Jovovich as Alice, Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine) and Boris Kodjoe (Luther West). Shawn Roberts (Albert Wesker) makes a cameo appearance. Colin Salmon who played James "One" Shade and Michelle Rodriguez who played Rain Ocampo in the first film return.
Oded Fehr who portrayed
Carlos Oliveira in the
second and
third film also returns. There are two "versions" of Rain and Carlos; one being portrayed as "evil" and one as "good". The characters Ada Wong (played by Li Bingbing), Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb) and Barry Burton (Kevin Durand) appear in the film.
Ali Larter (
Claire Redfield),
Wentworth Miller (
Chris Redfield) and
Spencer Locke (
K-Mart) do not return and they are presumed to have died in the attack on Arcadia or held captive elsewhere by
Umbrella. Also, a new character portrayed by Aryana Engineer has been added to the franchise cast.
Filming Principal photography started on October 10 and wrapped on December 23, 2011, for a 55-day shoot. Filming locations included
Toronto at Cinespace's
Kipling studio facility,
Resident Evil: Retribution is the second film in the series to be shot in 3D, the first being
Resident Evil: Afterlife. It was also filmed in
4K resolution. The
Red Epic camera system was used, which producer
Jeremy Bolt said is 50% smaller than the Sony F35 that was used for
Resident Evil: Afterlife. On October 11, a platform collapsed during the second day of filming and injured 16 people on the set. According to
Toronto police, ten people were taken to the hospital for emergency treatment. Injuries included bruises and broken bones. Emergency workers had a difficult time determining which injuries were real, since the people were dressed in zombie costumes with fake blood. The streets of Red Square were cleared for a day and background filming was done in the Russian subway after it was cleared for five hours (although the subway station scene is actually the Lower Bay abandoned station of Toronto subway). Most of the streets were built into sets. Durand and Roberts wrapped filming in the first week of December and Li wrapped on December 14. A fight scene between Jill and Alice that involved over 200 moves began filming December 14 until the end of production.
Music The music group
Tomandandy, who performed the
Afterlife score, returned to score
Resident Evil: Retribution. Anderson explained that the score for the film is a progression of
Afterlifes, stating that he "wants to kind of mesh their more electronic stuff with an orchestra this time. It still has that cool Tomandandy feel, but it has a more epic scope to it." Singer
Mika Nakashima sings the theme song for the Japanese version of the film, "Ashita Sekai ga Owarunara."
Marketing The first teaser trailer of the film was attached to
Underworld: Awakening, an installment from
Resident Evil's
rival film series, and released in January 2012, featuring
product placement promoting Sony products such as the
Xperia phone, the
PlayStation Vita and the
Tablet S, underscored by narration from
Patrick Stewart, before transitioning into a post-apocalyptic
Washington, D.C., with Alice standing on the roof of the White House, in similar fashion to the promotion for previous installments,
Apocalypse and
Extinction. A viral website, UmbrellaCorporation.net, supposedly informed about Umbrella, reported that it was on a recruitment tour all over the world, with stops in Cancun, Mexico and San Diego, United States. While navigating the website, a video of Alice (Milla Jovovich) appeared, telling the viewer not to trust Umbrella. At the same time, an actual mobile tour for the film was launched, travelling to
Cancún,
Barcelona,
Poznań,
Warsaw and
Rome. Furthermore, a black, tinted SUV with the Umbrella Corporation symbol and name on its doors and license plate was seen in Atlanta in June. A second trailer premiered online on June 14, following a live Q&A with Milla Jovovich in New York City and was attached to prints of
''That's My Boy''.
Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr, Boris Kodjoe, Mika Nakashima and Paul W. S. Anderson appeared at the 2012
San Diego Comic-Con on Friday, July 13. A discussion for the film took place, and never-before-seen footage debuted. On August 10, 2012, a group of 27 people dressed as zombies "invaded" the
Shibuya shopping district and handed out leaflets to promote the film. The group marched across the crossing in front of the
Shibuya Station and then moved on to Shibuya's underground shopping area "Shibuchika" and to the "Shibuya Cine Palace". ==Release==