00:0028 years later, Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya casually confirms that fans will write
00:07about where Leon Kennedy's name comes from. He confirmed the long-standing fan theory that
00:12Leon is named after the titular character in Luc Besson's Leon the Professional,
00:17or simply Leon for those outside of the US. Over on Twitter, Kamiya recalls that during
00:22development of his directorial debut, Resident Evil 2, he consulted series creator Shinji
00:27Makami about what he should name the protagonist of the sequel. He claims that after being shot
00:31down on a few ideas, he suggested taking the name of the character of a film he'd recently watched,
00:36which just so happened to be Leon. Leon Kennedy and the titular Jean Reynaud played Hitman don't
00:42have very much in common, mind you, but the connection was made through other references
00:46found in the series. In the film, Leon takes in a 12 year old girl after a family is murdered.
00:51The girl in question is called Matilda, and in Leon Kennedy's next game you can unlock a gun
00:56named Matilda, alongside the professional difficulty setting. Sound familiar?
01:01Kamiya notes that naming the gun Matilda wasn't actually his idea, rather he credits someone else
01:07at Capcom. Still, that's another long-standing fan theory that has been finally put to bed.
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