Resident Evil is having a bit of a moment right now. Capcom just released a remake of 1998’s Resident Evil 2, one of the most beloved entries in the series, to critical acclaim. Now, Deadline reports that Netflix is making a scripted series based on the video games. Everything’s coming up zombies!
Non-gamers may be most familiar with Resident Evil through the movie series starring Milla Jovovich, which wrapped up with Resident Evil: The Final Chapter in 2016. Those movies have the broad strokes of the Resident Evil games — there’s a company called Umbrella, it make a virus that turns people into monsters, there’s an outbreak, s*it gets real — but the details are all different. Constantin Film, the studio behind the movies, is also making the Netflix show, so we can probably expect this new adaptation to be loose at best. Deadline has heard that the show will keep the “basic premise” of the franchise and use it to “deepen the existing mythology.”
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Honestly, I wish they would stick closer to the games. The original Resident Evil movie was made way back in 2002, when Hollywood was still adapting video games only reluctantly and felt the need to change things. The video game industry has grown by leaps and bounds since then, and I think Hollywood is getting more comfortable embracing them as source material, no matter how weird they are. I mean, did you see the trailer for that Detective Pikachu movie?
With that in mind, if we’re gonna have a Resident Evil TV show, I want it to reflect the games. Give me Jill Valentine running from Nemesis! Give me Leon Kennedy blowing the heads off chainsaw-wielding Spanish villagers! The material’s right there; I say use it.
But somehow I don’t think I have a say. At present, producers are still looking for a showrunner. If this series moves ahead, it will join a growing stable of splashy Netflix genre shows that will be battling for our attention over the next few years, including literary adaptation The Witcher, a Chronicles of Narnia show, a new Ghost in the Shell series, and live-action takes on Cowboy Bebop and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Netflix is going ALL IN, you guys.
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