Resident Evil Netflix show is official — here's what to expect

Welcome to New Racoon City! A Resident Evil live action TV series is officially coming to Netflix. The news comes after months of development and a long search for a showrunner.

Netflix has ordered eight episodes of the Resident Evil show. The streaming service confirmed the news on Twitter with an image of the premiere episode's script, which is titled "Welcome to New Racoon City."

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The project's existence was first reported by Deadline back in January 2019. Then, this past February, a synopsis of the adaptation was prematurely leaked on Netflix's press site. 

The Resident Evil TV show will be overseen by Supernatural co-showrunner Andrew Dabb. 

"Resident Evil is my favorite game of all time,” Dabb said in a news release. “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.”

Capcom's Resident Evil is one of the biggest video game franchises of all time, with more than 100 million games sold worldwide. It's been adapted into a six-film franchise that's grossed more than $1.2 billion, making them the most successful video game film adaptations. 

Hollywood has been turning video games into movies and TV shows for decades, to varying effects. Netflix found its own hit with The Witcher. Other game-to-TV projects in the works include Halo on Showtime, The Last of Us on HBO and Fallout on Amazon.

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Resident Evil TV show release date

Netflix has not announced a release date for the Resident Evil TV series. All we know right now is that there is at least one script. 

Dabb, who will serve as showrunner and wrote the episode 1 script, won't be able to start production on Resident Evil until he's wrapped up the delayed final season of the longtime CW drama. Like many film and TV projects, Supernatural was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic and is just resuming production.

So it's likely we won't see the Resident Evil TV series until late 2021.

Resident Evil TV show plot

The leaked synopsis of Resident Evil that came out in February read: "The town of Clearfield, MD has long stood in the shadow of three seemingly unrelated behemoths - the Umbrella Corporation, the decommissioned Greenwood Asylum, and Washington, D.C. Today, twenty-six years after the discovery of the T-Virus, secrets held by the three will start to be revealed at the first signs of outbreak."

Netflix has revealed some more details, including that the show will be set in two timelines. One will follow sisters Jade and Billie Wesker, who move to New Raccoon City at age 14, before realizing the destination and their father “may be concealing dark secrets.” That father may possibly be the game's longtime antagonist Albert Wesker.

In the other timeline, 16 years in the future, Earth has been devastated by the T-Virus, which turns people into zombies. Six billion of them are ravaging the world, with just 15 million humans remaining, including Jade. She's struggling to survive, while secrets from her past — about her sister, her father and herself — continue to haunt her.

Resident Evil TV show cast

Any casting speculation is just that — pure conjecture. But with Dabb on board, perhaps some Supernatural cast members can make the jump to New Racoon City. Katie Cassidy as Jade Wesker, anybody? And we could totally see Jared Padalecki or Jensen Ackles as a fellow survivor. Then there's Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who knows his zombies from The Walking Dead and makes a great antagonist.

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