Though none of the movies have exactly been monster hits, or found their immutable place in mainstream pop culture, the Resident Evil films have been major moneymakers for their studio Screen Gems; even the fourth installment Resident Evil: Afterlife, released last September, made just $60 million domestic but grossed an astonishing $236 million overseas. But with the potential for a fifth film unclear, Screen Gems has to hunt down their next video game-to-movie franchise, and they seem to have found it in Devil May Cry.

According to Variety the Sony subsidiary has picked up the feature rights to the video game series, which has five installments of the story about Dante, the man avenging his mother's death by killing off demons. The story kicks off when Dante is attacked by a woman named Trish, who warns him of the imminent return of the demon emperor Mundus; it turns out Trish is working on behalf of Mundus, but in the way these things happen, the two eventually become partners in fighting demonkind. The video game, of course, mostly focuses around Dante's adventures whacking demons right and left, but there seems to be potential for building a broader mythology there, or at least a kickass partnership between Trish and Dante as they murder the denizens of the underworld.

Devil May Cry has already been adapted as graphic novels, books and action figures, which makes a movie adaptation pretty much the automatic next step. It'll be another one of those movies that starts life as a product before being shaped into an actual story, but those of you still holding out hopes for a truly good video game movie, you're welcome to put some faith in this one anyway.