Everything That Went Wrong With Resident Evil Remakes
Movies in the Resident Evil universe continue to get low ratings and series are canceled. Why is it so difficult to make at least one decent adaptation that will satisfy the fans?
Riding the wave of renewed popularity of zombie themes after the release of The Last of Us, let's revisit a franchise with a very sad fate — the Resident Evil franchise. For over a dozen years, fans have been begging for a decent movie adaptation, but so far they haven't gotten one.
When it comes to video game adaptations, many people undoubtedly think specifically of Paul W.S. Anderson's franchise, which includes six (six!) movies. Looking at the series in isolation from the original, it's worth noting that it's the highest-grossing zombie movie series to date, and also the highest-grossing movie series based on a video game.
These are very entertaining movies, with a deadly beautiful Mila Jovovich (and the impressive zombie dogs from the first part), but unfortunately they have little to do with the games, using their story only as a basis for the plot.
This franchise has not been spared the curse of financially successful franchises, rolling on the rails of increasing budgets and deteriorating quality of the movies themselves. As proof of this, you can see some remarkable consistency on IMDb, with the score of each new movie getting lower and lower.
In 2021, Netflix decided that we needed another Raccoon City story with new faces. And it turned out to be... just terrible. Fans call Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City a "bad fanfic" because the only thing that makes the series similar to the source material is the names of the heroes.
And the setting, which is almost exactly the same as the game, was appreciated by everyone, even the most dissatisfied with the screen version. However, as we all know, a great movie can't be made with just decorations.
It's 2022, and Netflix decides they like banging their heads against a rake and releases another series, also called Resident Evil. And it happened again – the project fails miserably.
Considering that most Resident Evil fans are over thirty, the Netflix adaptation is aimed at teenagers, and is essentially a young adult drama that (surprise!) has almost nothing in common with the game. Viewers who dare to watch this latest adaptation only highlight the performance of Albert Wesker, who is basically good in any role.
Many fans agree that it's time to just leave the game series alone, as everyone is tired of such bad adaptations (and has been for a long time).