When the live-action TV adaptation of Capcom’s ever-popular Resident Evil series came to Netflix last month, it didn’t exactly set the world on fire. The show received a mediocre 55% critic score and a downright scathing 26% user score on Rotten Tomatoes, with many taking issues with its loose interpretation of the source material and generally messy storytelling. Couple that with some rather subpar ratings, and you have a recipe for yet another adaptation failure. Inevitably, this led to the Resident Evil show being canceled only six weeks after it initially aired, with no plans for a second season.
According to Deadline , the show’s inability to accrue viewer ratings and audience reception that offset the costs of production served as the main factor behind Netflix’s decision to cancel it. Although the series did manage to pull in a decent “72.7 million hours viewed for its opening weekend,” it did not receive a significant bump in hours viewed in its second week, something a major show like this should ideally have. After a mere three weeks, the show already began to crater in terms of hours viewed and fell out of Netflix’s Top 10 entirely.
One of the main actors responds
Lance Reddick, the actor who played iconic villain Albert Wesker in the show, recently posted a tweet in response to the cancellation. This tweet saw him thanking the fans, cast, crew, and executives who made the show possible while briefly calling out “the haters and the trolls.”
In the end, many longtime fans of the Resident Evil franchise probably won’t feel too broken up about the recently canceled TV show. Others may feel differently, of course. Maybe one day, Resident Evil fans will receive an adaptation that manages to both do justice to the source material and hold up well on its own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIdjcDTc9Vk
Published: Aug 29, 2022 04:30 pm