The director behind Barbarian was not the obvious choice to deliver the largest Resident Evil opening ever recorded. That is exactly what happened, though: Zach Cregger's Resident Evil grossed $108.3 million worldwide across its debut weekend.
Sony Pictures has confirmed the numbers, and they exceed every forecast. The film took $60 million domestically and a further $48.3 million from international markets. Taken together, that is the strongest theatrical launch in the franchise’s history.
The domestic figure deserves a closer look. Projections had placed the US opening in the $53 to $55 million range; the film cleared that comfortably.
A record that fell in a single weekend
Until now, the franchise’s best US opening was the $26 million earned by Resident Evil: Afterlife, the Milla Jovovich entry. Cregger’s version brought in more than twice that in its first three days.
Worth remembering: the production budget sat at roughly $75 million. Against an opening of this scale, that figure already looks conservative.
Cregger, whose credits also include Weapons, has delivered a horror franchise instalment whose opening beats every predecessor. For a series that was long treated as the joke of video game adaptations, that is a notable turnaround.
A courier who picked the wrong destination
The premise stays lean. Austin Abrams stars as a delivery driver who rolls into Raccoon City for a high-stakes drop-off and instead finds himself up against dangerous creatures.
Audiences have clearly bought into that hook. What is harder to credit is that critics have too.
Top marks for a live-action Resident Evil
The movie currently holds a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the best any live-action Resident Evil production has ever achieved.
Line up the box office and the reviews and you land on something this franchise has rarely managed: a commercial hit and a critical darling arriving in the same weekend.
Resident Evil is in theaters everywhere now.