The Resident Evil franchise isn’t messing around when it comes to expanding, even if the six-film series only wrapped up in 2017 with a status as the highest-grossing video game franchise in history secured thanks to bringing in over $1.2 billion at the box office.
In fact, it was just four months after Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Final Chapter was released that production company Constantin Films announced that a reboot was in the works, and 47 Meters Down director Johannes Roberts’ new spin on the material has already finished shooting, with the latest stab at reinventing the mythology set to arrive in September.
Not to be outdone, Netflix also have a Resident Evil project of their own in the works, and the eight-episode series will unfold across two separate timelines. We know that siblings Jade and Billie Wesker will be the central characters, but there’s no talent attached as of yet other than Supernatural veteran Andrew Dabb writing the scripts and experienced small screen director Bronwen Hughes handling at least the first two installments.
Now, a new casting call has reportedly been leaked and it sheds some more light on who will be involved in Netflix’s Resident Evil. As well as two versions of Jade and Billie from either timeline, the show is also looking for an actor aged 40-49 to play Albert Wesker and a woman in the same age range to portray Evelyn Marcus.
Being described as domineering, merciless and duplicitous would seem to make Evelyn the villain of the piece, but she’ll only factor into the present day timeline. Albert will take point in the flashbacks, presumably as the two stories eventually dovetail and lead to some big revelations and even bigger zombie action.
As ComicBook.com outlines:
As we previously have known, the story of this series is going to center around the children of Albert Wesker, who is one of the main antagonists of the video game franchise. Wesker’s children, named Jade and Billie, are said to have been described a bit further in two new casting calls. The two kids are fraternal twins and Jade is mentioned as being more stand-offish while Billie is said to have a kind heart. This nature though ends up hurting Billie in the long run though and sets in motion some of the plot points of the story. Lastly, another character named Evelyn has also been mentioned in these reported casting calls. Evelyn is said to be aggressive and is around the same age as Albert. She also has qualities that make her sound as though she could be one of the antagonists of the series.
Shooting on Resident Evil is set to kick off next month, so we should be getting some casting announcements very soon.
