Doctor James Marcus is a minor character who appears in the prologue of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. The good doctor was one of the founding members of the Umbrella Corporation and the man responsible for developing the T-Virus. He was portrayed by Mark Simpson.
History[]
Several years before the events of the first Resident Evil film, Marcus created the T-Virus as a means of curing his daughter Alicia of Progeria, a wasting disease that caused rapid aging. The virus appeared to work and Alicia's life was saved, and so Umbrella marketed the T-Virus as a new miraculous treatment for a myriad of different ailments.
However, the T-Virus had horrific unforeseen side effects: an incident occurred on a mountain resort in Europe where a child who had previously been treated with the T-Virus died, but the virus reanimated the child's corpse as a monstrous undead creature that killed and infected all of the passengers on a cable car.
While the first Undead incident was resolved and quickly covered up, Dr. Marcus realised that the T-Virus was too dangerous to continue developing and decided to have the project terminated. His business partner, Alexander Isaacs, objected to this, seeing the T-Virus' potential as a marketable biological weapon. To ensure the virus' continued development, Isaacs had Albert Wesker assassinate Marcus. Wesker killed Marcus by placing a plastic bag over his head and suffocating him.
With Marcus out of the picture, Isaacs became the Chairman and primary shareholder of Umbrella's board of directors and continued researching the T-Virus' military applications.
Trivia[]
- James Marcus was loosely based on the character of the same name from the Resident Evil game series. In the games, Marcus was both a co-founder of Umbrella and creator of the T-Virus, but played a significantly more antagonistic role than his movie counterpart.
- Creation of the T-Virus was originally credited to Dr. Charles Ashford in Resident Evil: Apocalypse. While it is possible the two worked together in research, it is also possible this is a retcon.