A ‘Resident Evil’ Live Action Series Is Coming to Netflix: Everything We Know

Your horror dreams are coming true. Netflix has just announced that it will officially be moving forward with a live action series based on Resident Evil, Capcom’s legendary video game franchise. Start your obsessive play-throughs and keep the lights on for this news.
Fans have been hoping for a Resident Evil Netflix series for a while, and it’s not hard to understand why. The video game series, and to a lesser degree the film franchise, has been a beloved cult staple since the first game was released in 1996. And as far as reboots and adaptations go, Netflix has a pretty good track record. Consider this your guide to everything we currently know about Netflix’s new Resident Evil series.

What Is Netflix’s Resident Evil Show About?

True to later additions of the video game series, this live-action show will be telling a brand new story set across two different timelines. Here’s how Netflix described the upcoming project in a press release:

In the first timeline, 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.

Cut to the second timeline, well over a decade into the future: there are less than 15 million people left on Earth. And more than six 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.

Who’s in the Cast of Netflix’s Resident Evil Series?

At the moment no one has been announced in the show’s cast. We’ll keep you updated as soon as that changes.

Who Is Andrew Dabb?

Andrew Dabb, a longtime writer for The CW’s Supernatural, will serve as the showrunner for the new series. “Resident Evil is my favorite game of all time. I’m incredibly excited to tell a new chapter in this amazing story and bring the first ever Resident Evil series to Netflix members around the world,” Dabb said in a press release. “For every type of Resident Evil fan, including those joining us for the first time, the series will be complete with a lot of old friends, and some things (bloodthirsty, insane things) people have never seen before.”
In addition to Dabb, Bronwen Hughes will direct and executive produce the first two episodes. Hughes is best known for her work on The Walking Dead and The Journey Is the Destination. Additionally, Robert Kulzer, Oliver Berben, and Mary Leah Sutton will executive produce. The series will be produced by Constantin Film, which has been involved in every Resident Evil movie.

Will the Netflix Series Be Connected to the Video Games or the Movies?

It certainly seems like it will be, considering that Dabb is a mega-fan. Most installments of the Resident Evil franchise follow different stories in the same horrific universe. In a world that’s been infected or is being infected by the T-virus, a group of people has to outlast their zombie-like foes.

The film franchise typically focuses on the bigger implications of this new reality. Always following Milla Jovovich’s Alice, the movies revolve around getting to the core of the nefarious Umbrella Corporation while Alice kicks all sorts of zombie and monster butt. The Capcom games, by their very nature as a survival horror game, function a bit differently.
Each game usually follows a different group of survivors as they battle their way around Raccoon City. Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6 took a note out of the film’s book and were more action-oriented. But for the most part the Resident Evil video game franchise relies on dark corners, sneaking around, and limited supplies as your character merely tries to survive the unrelenting horrors around them.
Based on the brief description offered from Netflix, it seems as though the new Resident Evil series will attempt to combine both of those aesthetics. The second timeline about battling monstrous people and animals in the New World screams of the film franchise. But the decidedly slower and creepier pace of the first timeline — two teenage girls who realize that their town is hiding some dark secrets — feels more in line with the pacing of the game series.

When Will Netflix’s Resident Evil Show Premiere?

Netflix has yet to announce a release date for this new series. But hopefully all of those jump scares and infected monsters will be coming sooner rather than later.