Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot has delivered the strongest theatrical opening in the franchise’s history, launching with an estimated $108.3 million worldwide and comfortably beating pre-release expectations in North America.
The new Resident Evil earned $60 million in the US and Canada during its opening weekend, alongside another $48.3 million from international markets. Its domestic performance is particularly notable given forecasts had placed the movie somewhere around the $40 million to $50 million range heading into release.
That $60 million debut also demolishes the franchise’s previous domestic opening record. Resident Evil: Afterlife had held the crown since 2010 after starting with $26.6 million, meaning Cregger’s reboot has more than doubled the previous benchmark.
There is another eye-catching comparison buried in the numbers. The reboot’s $108.3 million opening weekend has already surpassed the original 2002 Resident Evil movie’s entire $102.9 million worldwide theatrical run. Inflation and two very different theatrical markets make that an imperfect comparison, but it illustrates how much larger the franchise’s opening-weekend ceiling has become.
The performance continues an impressive commercial run for Cregger. His 2022 horror film Barbarian opened domestically with roughly $10 million, while Weapons arrived with approximately $43.5 million and eventually reached $270 million worldwide. Resident Evil represents another substantial jump in opening-weekend scale.
A reported $75 million production budget also gives Sony a potentially strong foundation, although opening weekend alone does not determine profitability. Marketing costs, cinema revenue splits and the movie’s performance over the next several weeks will all matter. Japan and China were also reportedly still to open, leaving additional international box-office potential.
More importantly for Resident Evil, the result suggests audiences were willing to give the series another theatrical chance following 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Rather than continuing the Milla Jovovich-led movie continuity, Cregger’s version starts again with a new cast and an approach more closely connected to the survival-horror identity associated with Capcom’s games.
Sony therefore has something previous attempts struggled to establish: significant opening-weekend momentum for a fresh version of Resident Evil. Whether that translates into a durable new film series will depend heavily on what happens next. Horror movies can be front-loaded, and recognizable intellectual property can generate considerable curiosity during opening weekend. The second-weekend drop may prove just as revealing as the record itself.
