Netflix’s Resident Evil Show Gets a Cast and a Release Date

Zombies never go out of style, or at least that’s what the creative team behind the upcoming Resident Evil TV series at Netflix believe. First announced in 2020, the show will finally make its Netflix debut on July 14, 2022.

Led by Supernatural executive producer/writer Andrew Dabb, the hour-long live-action series centers on Jade Wesker—daughter of superpowered madman Albert Wesker—navigating a post-apocalyptic world in the year 2036. She wants to escape her past in New Raccoon City, specifically “her father’s chilling connections to the Umbrella Corporation” and the trauma of whatever happened to her sister Billie.

According to Netflix’s press release, “infected and insane creatures” roam the lands, which is a polite way of saying the series will follow its videogame counterpart and lean into various supernatural creatures along with the trademark zombies. Enemies within the games have ranged from giant water salamanders, giant spiders, and the absolute most horrifying baby I have ever seen in my life.

Lance Reddick will portray Albert Wesker. The rest of the main cast’s names were announced but not their roles, so we just have to guess for now. Those actors include Ella Balinska, Tamara Smart, Siena Agudong, Adeline Rudolph, and Paola Nuñez, with additional cast including Ahad Raza Mir, Connor Gossatti, and Turlough Convery.

The teaser posters released alongside the announcement hint at a more technology/medicine focus, with blood vials and pills prominently on display. You can see all three of those posters at the bottom of this post. The series will consist of eight episodes, and it premieres on July 14.

This is not the first time Resident Evil is making the jump to live action: there are six blockbuster movies that become more and more disconnected from the videogame lore with each installment, the most recent and final being 2017’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.

Nor is it the first collaboration between developer Capcom and Netflix, that honor belongs to this past November’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Writer/director Johannes Roberts combined the stories of the first two games and brought back much of the B-movie campiness that initially defined the series. To date, the series forays into film have received mostly negative reviews, but still managed to rake in almost $1.3 billion.