Resident Evil Tracks $35M Franchise-Record Opening, Eyes $50M — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Resident Evil is tracking a $35M domestic opening for its Sept. 18 debut, with first-day sales described as 'huge' that could drive the figure as high as $50M
- A $35M start would set a franchise record, topping Resident Evil: Afterlife's $26.6M 2010 opening — which was inflated by the post-Avatar digital 3D craze — across a seven-title series that has grossed $1.27B globally
- Zach Cregger's horror pedigree is the draw: he is Oscar-winning and directed Weapons, which opened to $43.5M domestically and finished at $151.5M domestic / $270M worldwide
- First-choice tracking for Resident Evil leads Weapons ($43.5M open), Alien: Romulus ($42M) and 28 Years Later ($30M), with its strongest pull among men under 25 followed by men over 25
- Tracking currently sits -23% behind Mortal Kombat II's first-choice, which hit tracking at a projected $50M but opened at $38.5M — a cautionary precedent given the question of whether Resident Evil can reach beyond core fans
- Sony's Resident Evil, co-written by Cregger and Shay Hatten, stars Austin Abrams and Paul Walter Hauser as a medical courier delivering a package into Raccoon City
Why it matters: Sony and Constantin would land the biggest domestic debut in a $1.27B-grossing seven-film franchise, validating their bet on Cregger's post-Weapons horror cachet. The flip side is the -23% gap behind Mortal Kombat II's first-choice tracking — a comp that overshot by $11.5M — leaving open whether Resident Evil converts its core young-male buzz into broader theatrical turnout.
Ask SkimNews
