Netflix reveals cast of live-action 'Resident Evil' series, Lance Reddick to play Albert Wesker

Reddick will be the first actor of colour to portray notorious virologist Wesker in the history of the franchise. Canadian actor Shawn Roberts and Irish star Jason O'Mara have previously played the role. According to Deadline, the series will also star Ella Balinska, Tamara Smart, Siena Agudong, Adeline Rudolph, and Paola Nunez. The live-action scripted show, based on the video game and movie franchise of the same name, hails from ''Supernatural'' showrunner Andrew Dabb. 

The series has received an eight-episode order from the streamer and will tell a brand new story across two timelines. 

The first will follow 14-year-old sisters, Jade and Billie Wesker, who move to New Raccoon City, a manufactured, corporate town, forced on them right as adolescence is in full swing. But the more time they spend there, the more they come to realise that the town is more than it seems and their father may be concealing dark secrets, that could destroy the world. The second timeline is set more than a decade into the future where less than 15 million people are left on Earth, against more than six billion monsters -- people and animals infected with the T-virus. Jade, now thirty, struggles to survive in this New World, while the secrets from her past - about her sister, her father and herself - continue to haunt her. 

Contantin Films will produce the series with Dabb serving as writer, showrunner and executive producer. 

The movie franchise, launched in 2002 with Milla Jovovich-starrer ''Resident Evil'', consists of six films, that earned USD 1.2 billion in worldwide gross. It ranks among the highest-grossing film series ever based on a video game.