What We Know about the Resident Evil Series Coming to Netflix
Deadline has reported that Resident Evil is headed to Netflix. Furthermore, the report states that the live-action series will see the involvement of Constantin Film, which is relevant because said production company is the one behind the Resident Evil movies. Unfortunately, Netflix has refused to say anything about the report, which is perhaps unsurprising when it claims that the series is still in early development.
What Do We Know about the New Resident Evil Series?
Based on this, it is clear that we know very little about the Resident Evil series. Moreover, what little we know should be treated with a serious measure of skepticism, both because of the report that it is in early development and because none of the information that it contains has been confirmed at this point in time. Still, enough has been revealed to support some speculation.
For starters, the Deadline report claims that the Resident Evil series will retain the core premise. In short, the Umbrella Corporation’s interest in a most unusual virus has produced a bioweapon capable of producing incredible changes in its victims. The most obvious example would the zombies. However, it is important to note that those zombies can continue undergoing mutation to become even worse monsters, with an excellent example being the quadrupedal Lickers, which can be recognized with a single glance by its eyelessness, its skinlessness, and the fact that its brain has somehow managed to protrude through its skull.
With that said, this core premise can lead to very different outcomes. For example, the destruction of Raccoon City in the Resident Evil games caused the U.S. government to come down hard on the Umbrella Corporation by freezing its assets and revoking its trade rights. Granted, its research is still being used by various bioterrorist organizations in the setting, but there is a strong indication that the United States and other countries have cooperated to set up the B.S.A.A. to take care of such incidents whenever and wherever they pop up. In contrast, the destruction of Raccoon City was just the start in the Resident Evil movies, setting as how the setting had turned postapocalyptic by movie three of six. On top of this, it should be noted that the two components of the greater Resident Evil franchise have focused on very different characters with very different stories because the Resident Evil movies aren’t adaptations so much as original stories that are loosely inspired by the Resident Evil games.
Due to this, it will be interesting to see whether the new Resident Evil series will be closer to the games or to the movies. The Resident Evil games might have been the works that started up the whole thing, but it is interesting to note that the Resident Evil movies remain the highest-grossing movie franchise based on a video game series at more than $1.2 billion combined. For that matter, it wouldn’t be unthinkable for the new Resident Evil series to head in its own direction, particularly since its new medium means that some serious changes will have to be made anyways because a simple and straightforward adaptation just wouldn’t be possible.
It should also be mentioned that it sounds as though the new Resident Evil series won’t be same as the reboot that has been planned for the Resident Evil movies. Essentially, Constantin Film has announced that it is working on a reboot of the Resident Evil movies, with the first installment being headed up by Johannes Roberts, who will be pulling double-duty as both director and writer. However, since Roberts’s involvement was revealed very recently in December of 2018, it seems unlikely that the planned movie would have turned into a longer-running series within such a short period of time. With that said, if the movie and the series are indeed separate projects, one can’t help but wonder whether there will be some kind of connection between them or not, particularly since the same production company will be involved with both of them.
Regardless, more information is bound to come out in the times to come. In the meanwhile, fans of the Resident Evil franchise would do better to check out the Resident Evil 2 remake that has just been released, which contains enough changes as well as enough improvements to make it fresh even for veterans of its original counterpart.
