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Deadline Site: Netflix Cancels Live-Action Resident Evil Series
posted on by Egan Loo
The entertainment industry news source Deadline reported on Friday that Netflix has decided against a second live-action season based on CAPCOM's Resident Evil survival horror game franchise.
The eight-episode series premiered on July 14 and garnered 72.7 million hours viewed to rank #2 in its first week on Netflix. However it dropped to #3 with 73.3 million hours viewed in its second week, and dropped out of the top 10 in its third week. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported a 55% average ranking among critics and 27% among audiences, while Metacritic reported a metascore of 53 (out of 100) among critics and a user score of 1.4 (out of 10).
The series cast Lance Reddick, Ella Balinska, Tamara Smart, Siena Agudong, Adeline Rudolph, and Paola Nunez. Reddick will play Albert Wesker.
Bronwen Hughes (The Walking Dead) directed the series at Constantin Film, and Andrew Dabb (Supernatural) wrote the scripts. Hughes and Dabb were executive producers with Marry Leah Sutton and Constantin Film's Robert Kulzer and Oliver Berben.
The Hollywood Reporter describes the story:
The Netflix series will tell its new story across two timelines. In the first, 14-year-old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker are moved to New Raccoon City. A manufactured, corporate town, forced on them right as adolescence is in full swing. But the more time they spend there, the more they come to realize that the town is more than it seems and their father may be concealing dark secrets. Secrets that could destroy the world. The second, more than a decade into the future sees less than 15 million people left on Earth. And more than 6 billion monsters — people and animals infected with the T-virus. Jade, now 30, struggles to survive in this new world, while the secrets from her past — about her sister, her father and herself — continue to haunt her.
Constantin Film produced all six films in the Paul W.S. Anderson-directed Resident Evil franchise. The first Resident Evil film premiered in 2002 with actress Milla Jovovich as protagonist Alice. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, the "final" live-action film, opened in Japan in December 2016, and in North America in January 2017.
Constantin Film hired Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) to direct and write Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, the first reboot film for the franchise. Entertainment industry news website Variety reported that the reboot film will be the first of six. The film premiered in November 2021 after a delay from September 2021. The film opened in Japan on January 28.
Constantin Film had announced in 2014 that the movies would get a television show spinoff.Netflix's separate Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness CG anime series debuted exclusively on Netflix worldwide in July 2021 and had four episodes.
Source: Deadline
