The film stars Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, Martin Crewes, and Colin Salmon.

Several writers and filmmakers, such as Alan B. McElroy, George A. Romero and Jamie Blanks, were initially hired to direct and write the film, but their scripts were rejected.

Developed as a prequel set in the same continuity as the video game series, the film was initially titled Resident Evil: Ground Zero, but was retitled after the September 11 attacks.

Resident Evil was theatrically released in Germany on March 12, 2002, by Constantin Film Verleih, and in the United Kingdom on July 12, 2002, by Pathé Distribution.

Underneath Raccoon City, a genetic research facility called the Hive is owned by the Umbrella Corporation.

In response, the facility's artificial intelligence, the Red Queen, seals the Hive and kills everyone inside to prevent the virus from leaking into the outside world.

The commandos explain that everyone in the group except Matt is an employee of the Umbrella Corporation, and Alice and her partner Spence were assigned to guard the Hive's secret entrance beneath the mansion under the pretense of being married.

Despite the Red Queen's pleas for the group to leave, Kaplan disables it, causing the power to fail and all of the doors in the Hive to open.

This releases the zombified staff and containment units holding Lickers, creatures created through experimentation with the T-virus.

The survivors reunite at the Red Queen's chamber, where the commandos explain they have one hour before the Hive traps them inside automatically.

Alice and Kaplan activate the Red Queen to find an exit; they rig a remote shutdown to force her cooperation.

[15] Robert Kulzer, head of the production, said that, although he felt Romero's script was good, the film would have received an NC-17 rating if it had been approved.

[19] In 2019, the University of Pittsburgh's Library System acquired the "George A. Romero Archival Collection", which included material involving his work on Resident Evil.

[23] In 1995, Paul W. S. Anderson's low budget film Mortal Kombat became one of the first commercially successful video game adaptations.

[24] After playing Resident Evil, Anderson saw its cinematic potential and wrote a script titled Undead, which he described as "a ripoff" of the game.

Bernd Eichinger, head of Constantin Film, was enthusiastic, so Anderson developed it into the script for Resident Evil.

David Boreanaz was intended to portray the male cop lead of Matt Addison, but he turned down the role to continue work on the WB series Angel.

[32] Principal photography began on March 5, 2001, at numerous locations including the then-unfinished station U-Bahnhof Bundestag of the Berlin U-Bahn, Landsberger Allee, Kaserne Krampnitz and the Schloss Lindstedt.

[36] The film's synopsis as of March 16, 2001 revealed that Jovovich's Alice and Rodriguez's Rain were the leaders of a commando team sent in to prevent a viral outbreak from spreading to the rest of the world.

There are several references to characters and organizations such as the Umbrella Corporation, the Nemesis program, the underground train bearing the moniker "Alexi-5000" (a double callback to a similar train in Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica's villain Alexia Ashford), and a police cruiser, from which Alice takes out a shotgun, with a "STARS" logo on the hood.

[38] Alice finds a picture of her wedding day with Spence, which is in the same style as the photos in the first version of the Resident Evil game: black-and-white with the foreground image noticeably spliced into the background.

[36] While returning to the Red Queen's chamber, Kaplan points out that the four bodies of the group's dead crew from the Glass Hallway Trap sequence are gone.

[45] On February 16, 2002, Nick Des Barres, a 23-year-old aspiring actor and ex-video game magazine designer, was announced as the winner of the competition.

[49] In May 2001, it was announced that Sony Pictures Releasing would distribute the film in North America and Italy through their Screen Gems label.

[53] In December 2001, it was announced that Pathé and FilmFour had acquired the British theatrical distribution rights to the movie as part of a partnership between the two companies.

[56] It was a special edition release, with a number of documentaries including five featurettes, one of which explained the making of Resident Evil, the film's score composition, costume design, set design, zombie make up tests, and the music video for a remixed version of "My Plague" by Slipknot.

The consensus reads, "Like other video game adaptations, Resident Evil is loud, violent, formulaic, and cheesy.

[66] Robert K. Elder from the Chicago Tribune thought the film "updates the zombie genre with an anti-corporate message while still scaring its audience and providing heart-pounding action".

[67] Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly noted: the film is as "impersonal in its relentlessness as the video-game series that inspired it".

[69] In his review, Ebert described it as a zombie movie set in the 21st century, where "large metallic objects make crashing noises just by being looked at", and criticized the dialogue for being a series of commands and explanations with no "small talk".