Zach Cregger's 'Resident Evil' Doubles Franchise Record in Domestic Box Office Debut

Cregger's Reboot Sets a New Franchise High

Sony Pictures' Resident Evil reboot, directed by Zach Cregger, opened to $26.3 million domestically on its first day, according to figures reported by DiscussingFilm and The Wrap. That single-day total nearly matches the $26.6 million three-day domestic opening weekend of 2010's Resident Evil: Afterlife, the previous franchise benchmark, effectively doubling the series' prior opening-day record in a single frame.

Opening-Weekend Projections Climb Past Prior Records

Sony is estimating a domestic opening weekend of $53 million to $55 million, with some industry trackers projecting as much as $60 million. Either figure would surpass every previous Resident Evil film's domestic opening weekend on an unadjusted basis, and would place the film above the inflation-adjusted $40.9 million debut of Resident Evil: Afterlife. The opening-day haul includes $8.8 million from Thursday-evening previews, already the highest preview gross in franchise history.

Critical Reception Lifts Commercial Outlook

The film's performance is being driven in part by unusually strong reviews for the series: it holds a 95–96% critics score and a 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a B+ CinemaScore, the highest grade any Resident Evil film has received. Industry coverage attributes the result to the response to Cregger's previous films Barbarian and Weapons, the latter having grossed $270 million worldwide on a budget under $40 million, as well as to a marketing push for the most expensive project of his career, reported at a $75 million production budget.

A Bigger Year for Sony and for Horror

The result extends a strong run for Sony at the domestic box office following Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which coverage describes as having become the highest-grossing domestic release of all time on an unadjusted basis. The opening also continues a banner 2026 for horror, following the combined roughly $1 billion worldwide gross of Obsession and The Backrooms on combined budgets of about $10 million. Resident Evil is playing in 3,166 theaters nationwide and is tracking toward a worldwide debut in the $96 million to $101 million range if Deadline's pre-release overseas estimate of about $31 million holds alongside the upper end of current domestic projections.

What to Watch Next

Monday's domestic estimate from Sony and the first full-weekend international holdouts will determine whether Resident Evil finishes above or below the $55 million–$60 million U.S. corridor, and whether it overtakes Resident Evil: Afterlife as the franchise's biggest domestic weekend of all time.

Resident Evil, Zach Cregger, Sony Pictures, Resident Evil: Afterlife, box office, horror