Zach Cregger's Resident Evil opened to $26.3 million on Friday from 3,684 locations. With strong Saturday tracking, Sony is projecting a three-day debut of $53 to $55 million. Industry estimates put the ceiling closer to $60 million.
Either figure would represent the franchise's best-ever domestic opening by a significant margin. The previous record belonged to Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil: Afterlife, which opened to $26.6 million across its entire first weekend in 2010. Cregger's version surpassed that in a single day, according to The Wrap.
The reboot arrives with a 96% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 91% audience score. Audiences gave it a B+ CinemaScore, the highest grade any film in the series has ever received. PostTrak scores sit at 4.5 out of 5.
The $75 million production marks a personal career high for Cregger as well. His previous film, Weapons, opened to $43.5 million. That performance earned him the Resident Evil commission. This one appears to justify it.
For Sony, the opening represents a clean franchise reset after a run of diminishing returns. For Cregger, it confirms a trajectory that started with Barbarian in 2022: a filmmaker who crossed from comedy into horror and has now made two of the genre's biggest commercial swings of the decade. Whether the weekend closes at $53 million or $60 million, the more significant number may be the 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. No prior Resident Evil film has been received this way.