Netflix's Resident Evil Show Will Explain How Wesker Is Still Alive

Showrunner Andrew Dabb teases that Netflix's Resident Evil show will explain how Albert Wesker is still alive after being killed in the games.

Netflix's Resident Evil Show Will Explain How Wesker Is Still Alive

Showrunner Andrew Dabb teases that Netflix’s Resident Evil show will explain how Albert Wesker is still alive after being killed in the games. Capcom’s survival horror franchise first made its way to the screen with the Milla Jovovich-led movie series in the early ’00s and was subsequently followed by three CG-animated movies and the recent CG series Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness. The film franchise would get a reboot from 47 Meters Down‘s Johannes Roberts with 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which sought to hew closer to the games by adapting the first two titles in the series.

Development on a Resident Evil show has kicked around since 2005, with Constantin film first considering an animated series centered on Jovovich’s Alice and Sienna Guillory’s Jill Valentine, only to have abandoned it when Sony greenlit Resident Evil: Extinction. With Constantin’s efforts to bring the Mortal Instruments novels to the screen failing with Sony, they would look elsewhere for future Resident Evil projects after Jovovich’s final movie, ultimately landing at Netflix for the upcoming series. Resident Evil will be set in the universe of the games and revolve around twins learning of their dad’s dark secrets and ties to the Umbrella Corporation, ultimately leading to a new apocalypse.

With just a couple of months remaining until the show’s premiere, Entertainment Weekly caught up with showrunner Andrew Dabb to discuss Resident Evil. When asked whether the show will address how Albert Wesker is still alive, the Supernatural vet confirmed it will be explained but kept mum on details for how he has returned. See what Dabb shared below:

“If you know the games, Wesker is dead. He got blown up by a rocket launcher in a volcano — how I think we all wanna go. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say the explanation for why Wesker is the way that he is and how he is still alive go hand in hand.”

Albert Wesker is generally considered to be one of the best villains of the Resident Evil games for his frequent backstabbing of collaborators, good and bad, and his use of various Umbrella viruses to become a superhuman threat. As Dabb notes, Wesker did seemingly meet his end in the games with Resident Evil 5 as the final boss of the 2009 title with Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar successfully launching Wesker into a volcano with a missile. While the franchise has been notorious for bringing back characters from the dead, including Wesker himself, Resident Evil 5 producer Masachika Kawata did confirm that the villain was dead for good after the game.

Given the prior confirmation of his death, there has been a lot of curiosity as to how Netflix’s Resident Evil TV series would address Wesker being alive, with many assuming it would again take a loose approach to adapting the games or serve as a prequel to the games. However, with Dabb having recently confirmed that the Resident Evil show will be tied to the games and that everything will be canon for the series, it seems the streaming title could retcon some of the games’ key story threads. Only time will tell when Resident Evil hits Netflix on July 14.