The nightmarish world of the Resident Evil franchise might be headed for television, courtesy of an in-development series titled Arklay.
The series is being developed by Mance Media and gets its title from the region outside of Raccoon City described in the early Resident Evil games, which included the Arklay Mountains, Arklay Mansion (pictured), and the Umbrella laboratories where the deadly virus that that kicked off the long-running series was first introduced. Created by Shawn Lebert, the series is being pitched with a video proof-of-concept reel (embedded below) intended to establish the tone of the series by sampling from existing movies and television series — in this case, Hannibal, Se7en, and various other, similar projects.
Originally discovered by Bloody Disgusting, the pitch for the project is as follows:
Inspired by the Resident Evil franchise, ARKLAY is a new scripted survival horror series that delves into the mysterious homicides of Raccoon City.
When Detective James Reinhardt is thrust into a series of bizarre homicides, he unravels the city is hiding a dark conspiracy. Learning a fatal virus is connected to it all, Reinhardt discovers it’s already coursing through him. With time no longer on his side, he must solve the conspiracy to save his own life.
Since the series is still in the early stages of development, there’s no official footage or word on whether we’ll ever actually see the series on television — but that leaves plenty of room for speculation, of course. The upcoming series Gotham has already earned plenty of attention and early praise for its dark, gritty exploration of Batman’s city in the time before The Dark Knight made a name for himself there. Arklay appears to be mining a similar angle into the world of Resident Evil by exploring the apocalyptic viral outbreak in the time before the games put players in the center of it all.
