After being dubbed the worst-rated Netflix series of all time, Resident Evil has officially been cancelled, or perhaps it’s more apt to say that it has been put out of its misery, and dire, dire misery at that.
The formal decision was decreed six weeks after the series premiered on July 14th. Upon release there was plenty of fanfare – as ever with the Resident Evil franchise – but that soon dissipated as lambasting reviews hit the headlines.
However, the main reason behind the cancellation was down to Netflix’s completion metric which monitors how many people start watching a series but fail to finish it. This allows Netflix to look beyond potentially skewed viewing figures and calculate longevity.
Initially, the apocalyptic show hit 72.7 million hours viewed in its first week which is above the average threshold of around 65 million to secure the top spot. However, those figures soon dwindled and that was a fatal sign for the show, especially given its large budget.
With big-budget shows Stanger Things and The Sandman demanding huge investment from the streaming giant, Resident Evil was always going to have to punch above its weight to compete… and now it’s been knocked out.
Netflix are yet to officially comment on their decision.
