Live-Action ‘Resident Evil’ Series CONFIRMED at Netflix

Netflix confirms in a statement released Thursday morning that they are officially developing a live-action series based on the Capcom “Resident Evil” video game series.

The show will feature an entirely original story in a new universe separate from the video games and the movie franchise that will be told across two timelines.

The first timeline that the show will explore follows fourteen-year old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker who move to the industrial, corporatized Raccoon City and quickly discover that their father and the city both harbor dark secrets that could bring the end of the world as they know it.

The second timeline will follow Earth sixteen years after the first timeline where there are less than 15 million humans living amongst over six billion monsters, formerly human and animal, infected with a deadly pathogen called the T-Virus. A 30-year-old Jade struggles to navigate and survive this apocalyptic reality while continuing to decipher the secrets of Raccoon City, her father, and her sister that have to deal with the current state of the world.

The lead showrunner has been confirmed to be Andrew Dabb, best known as one of the head writers for The CW’s “Supernatural.” Dabb will also be an executive producer on the series and will at least write the pilot episode with the potential for other episodes in the season according to this initial announcement.

When discussing the show’s announcement, Dabb had this to say:

“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. 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." 

Bronwen Hughes will direct the first two episodes of the series and will also be an executive producer on the show. Hughes is best known as a television director, directing episodes for such prominent shows as “Breaking Bad,” “Teen Wolf,” “Hawaii Five-0,” and “The Walking Dead.” Hughes has previously worked with Netflix as a director of two episodes of their original series “13 Reasons Why.”

The series will feature 8 one-hour long episodes for this first season and will be produced in conjunction with Constantin Film, a prominent German horror studio. Robert Kulzer and Oliver Berben of Constantin Film and Mary Leah Sutton will be executive producers on the series as well.

A release date has not been set for the series, however, a pilot script has been completed. Production is expected to kick off this fall, and we could potentially see this drop on Netflix sometime in 2021.