Like Barry Burton in the first Resident Evil, we bellowed out a throaty “Weskerrrrr!” upon reading the news of a new Netflix series based on the long-running Capcom series. The streamer’s live-action spin on the convoluted mythos, it turns out, will center on 14-year old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker, characters we can only assume are in some way related to Albert Wesker, the sunglasses-wearing, smooth-talking spy, scientist, and antagonist.
The series will, per a press release, also be split into two timelines. The first follows the sisters as they move into New Raccoon City, which they come to realize is filled with secrets (and, you know, flesh-eating monsters that take a full clip to put down). The second timeline is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland more than a decade into the future. “[T]here are less than fifteen million people left on Earth,” reads a synopsis. “And more than six billion monsters—people and animals infected with the T-virus. Jade, now thirty, struggles to survive in this New World, while the secrets from her past—about her sister, her father and herself—continue to haunt her.”
This riff on Resident Evil will presumably exist in a different universe than Milla Jovanich’s film franchise, which, despite deviating greatly from the games, also found a place for Wesker (and numerous other characters from the games) across its six-film run. The focus on kids, at least, will give it the youthful appeal the gritty franchise never quite had.
Andrew Dabb, a veteran of Supernatural, serves as showrunner and executive producer, while Walking Dead alum and executive producer Bronwen Hughes has been tapped to direct the first two of its eight hour-long episodes. In a statement, Dabb promises “a lot of old friends”—“Barry! Where’s Barry?!”—and “some things (bloodthirsty, insane things) people have never seen before.”
A release date is forthcoming. In the meantime, why not kick back and make yourself a “Jill Sandwich”?