Netflix has abandoned its series adaptation of the video game franchise Resident Evil after a poorly performing freshman season. Those eight episodes dropped on July 14 and landed on Netflix’s Top TV Series chart at #2, second only to the phenomenon that is Stranger Things, with a respectable 72.7 million viewing hours throughout its initial weekend. It ticked up slightly, garnering 73.3M hours of viewing over its second week, enough to hang in at #3. By its third week, it had fallen out of Netflix’s Top Ten.
There was little chance that Resident Evil would become a word-of-mouth hit as it seems that no one really liked it. Its Rotten Tomatoes critical score is a poor 55%, and its audience score was remarkably much worse at 27%.
The Resident Evil Netflix series was not connected to the film franchise, which lasted for an impressive six features over 14 years. An unrelated reboot, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, was released in 2021 but flopped.
Showrunner Andrew Dabb led the TV adaptation. The series was set in the year 2036, many years after a virus was unleashed, turning most of the population into blood-thirsty monsters. Ella Balinska led the cast as protagonist Jade Wesker, who attempts to discover her father’s connection to the mysterious Umbrella Corporation and to find out what happened to her sister, Billie (Adeline Rudolph).
Tamara Smart and Siena Agudong appeared in flashbacks, portraying younger versions of Jade and Billie, respectively. These flashbacks were fittingly set in 2022.
Lance Reddick co-starred as the girls’ father, Al Wesker, however, the actor did some heavy lifting, as he also portrayed multiple other roles on Resident Evil, including his own brother and son… and some clones.
Reddick posted a video on Twitter in which he thanked the fans of the show:
A special thank you to all the fans who watched #ResidentEvilNetflix, the showrunners, my castmates, executives and more. We worked our asses off and had a great time. pic.twitter.com/A98aQVuA7t
— Lance Reddick (@lancereddick) August 27, 2022
Paola Núñez, who portrayed Evelyn Marcus on Resident Evil, is already working with Netflix on two upcoming projects, Mike Flanagan’s next horror miniseries, Fall of the House of Usher, and the Spanish-language film Fuga De Reinas.
Did you enjoy Netflix’s take on Resident Evil? Are you upset that there won’t be more?
