Box Office: Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ Scares Up $26 Million on Opening Day — SkimNews
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- Resident Evil earned $26.3 million domestically across 3,684 screens on opening Friday, debuting as the No. 1 new release and pacing toward an estimated $55 million weekend
- The projected opening makes it the largest debut in the Resident Evil franchise's history, surpassing 2010's "Resident Evil: Afterlife," which earned $26 million over its entire opening weekend
- Zach Cregger directed the reboot and co-wrote it with Shay Hatten, with Austin Abrams starring as a medical courier racing a zombie outbreak to Raccoon City General Hospital
- Cregger's previous horror film "Weapons" (2025) opened to $43 million and grossed $270 million globally, making this Resident Evil debut the biggest opening of his directorial career to date
- Variety's Owen Gleiberman called prior Resident Evil films "hyperviolent, hyperkinetic video-game zombie sludge" but praised Cregger's reboot as "a sweetly executed piece of escapist trivia" with "a quirky relatability"
- "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" landed at No. 2 on Friday with another $1.53 million, pushing its domestic gross to $944.15 million, just shy of "The Force Awakens'" $960 million record
Why it matters: Resident Evil's roughly $55 million opening — 15 years after the franchise's last big-screen entry — gives Sony its second monster hit of the fall after Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is $16 million from topping Star Wars: The Force Awakens' all-time domestic record. The success also establishes Zach Cregger, fresh off Weapons, as a horror director who can launch IP reboots, not just original features.
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