At the end of 2008, when
Resident Evil: Degeneration was released, the producers talked about a possible sequel. The director is
Makoto Kamiya, who often spoke with producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi due to his experience with the
Resident Evil video games. The character models were created based on Capcom's input in
Resident Evil 6, which was released shortly before the film. Leon's recurring appearances in the games as well as in the previous film led to him being the film's protagonist. The team received the Licker's CGI model from Capcom. However, the team created original creatures in order to make
Damnation a more unique film. In order to make the film faithful to the series, Kamiya often consulted Capcom over how should characters interact. He found the CGI animation challenging, and described the film as a
standalone, but still recommended fans to play certain games and watch
Degeneration to understand the film better. Kamiya initially wanted
Damnation to follow the dysfunctional romance between Leon and Ada, but the idea was scrapped. He stated that the film is meant to foreshadow elements of
Resident Evil 6. The film was produced with
motion capture and
3D. Kobayashi spoke of the team's desire to make the CGI films as appealing as Hollywood films. Kobayashi had produced
Resident Evil 4 and wanted to make a sequel to it. For consistency, production again based Leon Kennedy’s character face design on Jamisin Matthews, the face model from
Degeneration. To contrast Claire's role from
Degeneration, Ada Wong was picked as the returning heroine. The film features buddy elements but with focus on how more mature Leon is depicted. While there is focus on action, Kobayashi also introduced more horror elements. The inclusion of the Tyrants is meant to give the audience a shock due to how menacing they are. Another change compared to the previous film is the fact that the story is not set in North America but rather in
post-Soviet Eastern Europe. For the film, Suga went to
Eastern Europe and created the Eastern Slav Republic, a fictional post-Soviet country formed following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union. The ending is meant to be a cliffhanger as the story is meant to continue in
Resident Evil 6. In retrospect, Suga claims that
Damnation surpassed
Degeneration. The theme song by
Anna Tsuchiya, "Carry On", is played during the credits.
Toshiyuki Morikawa returned to voice Leon in Japanese, while
Matthew Mercer provided the English dub for Leon. The latter had previously done the motion capture for
Resident Evil 6 too but was replaced for the film by Kevin Dorman. Mercer elaborates the Leon from
Damnation is a more "younger, cockier" character, and "actually follows his transition" in contrast to the "broken, downtrodden Leon that
Resident Evil 6 begins with".
Damnation was recorded over five days according to Mercer, which lasted longer than the video game. Mercer said the script was "pretty stringent, but we [the staff] were able to improvise a bit". He claimed that since some of Leon's enemies are silent, there was not a lot of opportunity to perform jokes.
Courtenay Taylor, who plays Ada Wong, said that she felt pressure when voicing her character since it was her major debut as
Operation Raccoon City was not popular, unlike
Damnation and
Resident Evil 6, and had more knowledge about the live-action films. Val Tasso said that JD was his most memorable work and said that he also did the motion capture unlike other actors, also saying he enjoyed his character for the multiple facets the script gave him, most notably when interacting with Leon despite their initial antagonism.
Release The first trailer and first seven minutes of the film debuted in the panel discussion at
San Diego Comic-Con on July 13, 2012. The film was released theatrically in
Shinjuku,
Aichi, and
Osaka on October 27, 2012. Capcom and Sony Pictures released
Damnation as a digital download on
Xbox Live,
Zune and
PlayStation Network on September 15, 2012, and on
DVD and
Blu-ray on September 25, 2012. The
Damnation bonus contents include an art gallery of conceptual sketches, a 7-minute short film about the creatures seen in the film, a 30-minute documentary about the making of the film, a 6-minute gag reel, and video game and film trailers (such as
Resident Evil 6,
DmC: Devil May Cry and ''
Dragon's Dogma''). ==Reception==