Other than, you know, ending with a sixth and final installment quite literally called The Final Chapter, a reboot was always going to be the next course of action for the live-action Resident Evil franchise. Deciding to mount a dual-pronged assault on screens both big and small proved to be catastrophic, though, with Welcome to Raccoon City failing spectacularly in its mission statement.
There’s always an air of trepidation when a filmmaker and/or cast say something was made by the fans for the fans, which more often than not means barely anybody else is going to like it. That turned out to be right on the money with the seventh Resident Evil movie, which was pummeled by critics and fell woefully short at the box office.
Eight months later, and Netflix’s big budget TV series adapted from the iconic video game franchise premiered, and while it may have held onto the number one spot for a hot second, it was similarly crucified from the moment it arrived, causing the streaming service to pull the plug just 43 days later.
Naturally, whispers of yet another reboot are looming in the background despite Resident Evil cratering on film and TV twice in the span of a few months less than two years ago, but that’s sadly how the world works.
Either way, Welcome to Raccoon City has leaned into spooky season’s apex by convincing Netflix subscribers that its reputation is worth ignoring for the sake of an interminable undead shoot ’em up, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the platform’s most-watched features on a global scale.
