Source: COURTESY OF NETFLIX / Resident Evil
Welp, that was fast. After one season, Netflix has decided that its once-promising Resident Evil series does not deserve a second season.
Deadline exclusively reports that Netflix is doing its usual by canceling a show just after one season. The latest victim is the Resident Evil series which puts a fresh spin on the popular survival horror video game franchise.
The news of the show’s demise comes just months after its July 14 release and, according to the website, isn’t surprising due to how the show performed on the streaming service. The show faired poorly on Netflix’s Top 10 and was expensive to produce. Two factors against it, combined with a poor critical response, made Netflix’s decision easy to make.
Per Deadline:
Running partly in the shadow of mega genre hit Stranger Things, which was released within the same time frame, Resident Evil debuted at #2 with an OK 72.7M hours viewed. But It did not deliver the big Week 2 bump one would like to see for a new series as word of mouth spreads, raking in 73.3M hours viewed in its second week for a #3 finish before dropping precipitously and falling out of the Top 10 after only three weeks. The latest Resident Evil incarnation also logged underwhelming 55% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 27% audience score.
Netflix Canceling Resident Evil Is A Missed Opportunity
The show boasted a strong cast featuring Lance Reddick, Ella Ballinska, Tamara Smart, Siena Agudong, Adeline Rudolph, and Paola Nuñez.
Andrew Dabb was the showrunner and looked to build a series loosely based on the video games that would eventually tie into them and introduce other fan-favorite characters.
We did a story on how Netflix’s Resident Evil is better than the multiple movies, so, sadly, fans won’t get to Dabb’s vision for the series.
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Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX / Resident Evil