The 18-year-old "Resident Evil" franchise has seen nine video games, five movies, novels, comic books, toys and more. Now it's about to get its first TV show.
The Resident Evil games center around a zombie apocalypse, featuring survival/horror/action gameplay. It's set largely in a fictional place called Raccoon City, which is home to the secretive Umbrella Corporation. Umbrella is responsible for creating a bio-weapon called the "T-virus," the pathogen that causes the zombie apocalypse.
Mance Media, a relatively new studio and distributor without any major credits yet to its name, is in early development stages on a TV series inspired by the Resident Evil game franchise. Its name is "Arklay," a reference to the Arklay Mountains, a fictional area of the United States where Raccoon City is located. In the Arklay Mountains, players encountered Arklay Laboratory, the clandestine facility where Umbrella first created the T-virus.
According to Mance Media, the TV series will have no connection to the Milla Jovovich movies (which themselves have very little in common with the games), instead looking to create something more like "The Walking Dead," that's faithful to the source material. The story follows a new character to the franchise, Detective James Reinhardt, as he first comes to Raccoon City and investigates a series of strange homicide cases. It's not long before he realizes that a dark, dangerous conspiracy lurks within the city, a conspiracy connected to a fatal virus.
What's worse, he's soon alarmed to find that the virus has somehow already entered his own system. "Arklay" becomes a race against time when Reinhardt has to relentlessly pursue the conspiracy's secrets before he succumbs to the virus. With a premise like that, it sounds as though "Arklay" could be a one-season series, although the story could conceivably continue beyond the resolution to Reinhardt's personal crisis.
Newcomer Shawn Christopher Lebert, whose IMDb profile suggests that he's held a number of low-profile jobs in film and television, confirmed to Polygon that he created and is writing "Arklay." Mance Media lists "2015" as the tentative launch date for "Arklay," but of course this is subject to change. Lebert said that he's "currently in negotiations with Mance Media," but couldn't say anything more just yet.
Mance Media posted the video below as a proof of concept that demonstrates the tone "Arklay" is shooting for. (The video is made up of clips from various existing shows; it's the editing and atmosphere that matter.)
