Sony Pictures opened its Resident Evil reboot to about $60 million at the domestic box office over the weekend of September 18 to 20, the largest three-day debut in the video game franchise’s history. The result placed the film at number one and gave director Zach Cregger the biggest opening of his career so far. It also stood as the strongest start for any horror release in the second half of the year, arriving as studios look for wins ahead of the crowded autumn schedule.
The picture added roughly $48.3 million from international markets, bringing its global total to about $108.3 million in its first weekend. Sony reported a production budget of $75 million, which leaves the film with room to turn a theatrical profit if it holds through the coming weeks. The figure marked a clear step up from the franchise’s previous studio attempt, 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which opened to a fraction of that sum and faded quickly.
Cregger directed the film, with Austin Abrams leading the cast as Bryan, a medical courier who is pulled into an outbreak. Reviews were strong, with the movie holding a 95 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 81 on Metacritic. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore graded it a B+, a mark that studios watch closely because it signals the word of mouth that can carry a film through its second and third weekends.
Practical Magic 2 held second place in its own second weekend, adding about $12.1 million for Warner Bros. and pushing its domestic running total to roughly $50 million. Spider-Man: Brand New Day placed third and, with a domestic gross of about $944.5 million, remained the highest earning release of the year in the United States and Canada. The rest of the top ten stayed well below those figures as several late summer titles wound down their runs.
The Resident Evil series is based on Capcom’s survival horror video games, which first appeared in 1996 and have carried the story across dozens of titles. An earlier live action series starring Milla Jovovich ran for five films between 2002 and 2016 and grossed more than a billion dollars worldwide across its entries. Sony’s new version resets the story for a fresh cast, and the opening weekend gives the studio a firm base as it considers further installments.
