Netflix's Resident Evil series appears to be making a key mistake the Milla Jovovich movies also made. The early success of the Resident Evil games made a film adaptation feel inevitable, with George A Romero being the first filmmaker attached. The movie eventually went ahead under director Paul W.S. Anderson instead, which cast Milla Jovovich as an original character named Alice. The movie was a significant departure from the storyline of the original game, but it was a comfortable success.
Jovovich soon became the face of the Resident Evil movie franchise, which was built around action and setpieces instead of scares. The films are easily the most successful video game to movie adaptations to date, with the Milla Jovovich era spanning six entries and a combined box-office gross of over $1.2 billion. The franchise later attempted a tonal reboot with 2021's Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City - which cut the best monster - that adapted the stories of the first two games and featured classic characters, creatures and locations. Despite this, the reboot was a critical and commercial letdown.
The next live-action outing for the franchise will be Netflix's Resident Evil TV series, which is set to arrive in July 2022. Details about the show are relatively sparse, though it's known that Lance Reddick is playing classic villain Albert Wesker, and the show will be split between two timelines. The first is set in 2022 and follows Wesker and his two daughters Jade and Billie as they move to New Raccoon City, while the second timeline is set in a post-apocalyptic future where most of the planet has been overtaken by monsters. That basic setup has little to no connection to the games, and this seeming lack of reverence for the source material means the Netflix Resident Evil show might be making the same mistake as the Milla Jovovich Alice films.
While the second Jovovich film Resident Evil: Apocalypse played like a loose adaptation of the third game Nemesis, the films ultimately moved further and further away from the source material. Many fans of the games were deeply disappointed with the films as they progressed for this reason. In a similiar vein, Netflix's Resident Evil is being pitched as a total reinvention of the franchise, and on the surface, outside of Wesker and the return of zombies and evil corporation Umbrella, it appears to have little direct links to Capcom's titles. In fact, a post-apocalyptic world filled with monsters brings it much closer to Jovovich-era entires like Resident Evil: Extinction.
Of course, saying that Netflix's Resident Evil series is making a mistake going this route is up for debate. While some devotees of the games disliked the direction the Resident Evil movies took the story and they received largely bad reviews, they were undeniably popular with audiences and have the box-office receipts to prove that. In contrast, Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City was very faithful to Capcom's games - and left both fans and audiences cold in the process. The Jovovich movies created a distinct identity from the games, so maybe Netflix's Resident Evil is right to chart a new course. If it is trying something new, hopefully, it can avoid some of the other mistakes previous Resident Evil movies made in regards to thin characters and a cartoonish reliance on CGI too.