Netflix cancels live-action Resident Evil series after one season
By Mads Lennon
It’s over for Netflix’s live-action Resident Evil series. According to a Deadline exclusive, Netflix has chosen not to order additional seasons of the action-horror show based on the popular video game franchise.
This news is not surprising as the series didn’t generate the best viewership numbers and was not well-received by fans of the franchise or critics, although, generally, critics were kinder than the fans. Diehard Resident Evil fans have been begging for a faithful adaptation of the games for years. The many different films—and now series–have yet to satisfy the majority.
The closest fans have come to embracing an adaptation is probably the Paul W.S. Anderson films starring Milla Jovovich (the early ones, at least). But even that film series is polarizing.
Why did Netflix cancel Resident Evil?
There are multiple factors contributing to Resident Evil‘s cancellation. For one, the show debuts on July 14, and thus, it sort of floundered under the shadow cast by the massive hit that is Stranger Things. It’s a similar problem that occurred with The Umbrella Academy season 3, but at least The Umbrella Academy managed to climb its way back up the charts after the Stranger Things hype began dying down.
Resident Evil debuted at No. 2 with 72.7 million hours viewed and it didn’t get a significant week two bump. Most Netflix series tend to rise in the second week thanks to word of mouth and people discovering the new content.
That didn’t really happen for Resident Evil, or people were dissuaded from watching the show by the negative reviews. It only managed to bring in 73.3 million hours in week two and it landed at No. 3 before falling out of the Top 10 altogether after just three weeks. Additionally, Resident Evil was an expensive show to produce due to filming on-location in South Africa and the CGI.
And while Rotten Tomatoes scores are not everything (especially for Netflix), Resident Evil had a poor critical score at 55% and an even worse audience score at 27%, which certainly didn’t help matters.
Are you disappointed that Resident Evil will not be returning for a second season?