Netflix has canceled Resident Evil after one season, Deadline reports. The series was story based on the popular PlayStation video game franchise of the same name. The game has also spawned several film adaptations including last year’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City.
According to Deadline, the series premiered in July to a solid first week showing 72.7 million hours viewed and debuting at number 2 on Netflix’s Top 10 list. However, its performance by the third week found it drop out of the list entirely, only earning a million more viewers in its second week. Given Netflix’s alleged rating format, a series must accumulate and increase its hours viewed in an effort to earn a profit. Along with its poor performance by the platform’s standards, the series received less than stellar reviews earning a 55% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics. Viewers weren’t as forgiving signifying a low 27% grade for the show.
The series starred Ella Balinska (Charlie’s Angels, Run Sweetheart Run) as Jade Wesker, a young woman haunted by past familial trauma connected to an isolated incident in New Raccoon City, according to Deadline. Set on starting fresh 14 years later, Jade faces a similar plight as a global virus brings upon the apocalypse with mutated humans and flesh-eating creatures terrorizing humankind. Wesker finds herself fighting for survival as history repeats itself.
The show also starred Lance Reddick (The Wire, John Wick), Paola Núñez (Bad Boys For Life, Deseo), Tamara Smart (The Worst Witch, A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting), Turlough Convery (Doing Money, Sanditon), Adeline Rudolph (Creepers, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Siena Agudong (No Good Nick, Alex & Me), Ahad Raza Mir (Hum Tum, Yaqeen Ka Safar), and Connor Gosatti (3rd Night, No Bus).
Deadline lists showrunner Andrew Dabb (Supernatural: Bloodlines, Atomkia God Is Red) as executive producer and writer, along with Mary Leah Sutton (Tell Me A Story, Time After Time). They’re joined by Constantin Film’s Robert Kulzer (Tarzan, Resident Evil: Afterlife), Oliver Berben (The Wagner-Clan, Das Zeugenhaus), and Constantin’s CEO Martin Moszkowicz (The Superwife, Gut zu Vögeln) as executive producers.
The live-action series isn’t the streaming service’s first take on the Resident Evil lore. Last year Netflix premiered Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, an animated series that starred Nick Apostolides (Madden NFL 21, Life is Strange: Before the Storm) as Leon S. Kennedy, and Stephanie Panisello (Altered Carbon: Resleeved, BioShock Infinite) as Claire Redfield. Both Panisello and Apostolides have voiced the characters in various mediums in the franchise, including 2019’s Resident Evil 2. Apostolides will reprise his role in remake of Resident Evil 4 in 2023.