The Resident Evil franchise has made a lot of money, and though I’m generally opposed to the works of Paul W.S. Anderson, in this case it’s deserved. Critics will pan it and serious horror fans will turn up their nose at it, but most of the Resident Evil movies are a lot of fun. Big, dumb fun, but fun nonetheless. The last movie, Resident Evil: Afterlife took the fun to an entirely new level with its use of 3D which, believe it or not, was without question some of the best 3D seen in any movie last year.

Resident Evil: Afterlife was the fourth entry, and scored the biggest opening numbers of any film in the RE franchise so far. So it’s no surprise that today Sony confirmed the wheels are in motion to make Resident Evil 5 a reality by announcing September 14, 2012 as its eventual release date. The last three RE movies were released in September and did well so, while normally a September release date is the kiss of death, for this franchise it’s actually a good thing. In the absence of any other real competition Milla Jovovich’s zombie-fighting movies thrive.

No word yet on what the fifth film will be about, or for that matter what it will be called. Afterlife was heavily influenced by the RE video game series, and made it a point to remain as faithful as possible to the most recently released game title. Back in September here Milla Jovovich promised that the next movie would be heavily influenced by fans, promising it would be developed using an “interactive process.”