Resident Evil reboot opens to franchise best $60 million in North America

MUMBAI: The undead have found their pulse again, with Resident Evil storming the North American box office with a $60 million opening weekend and delivering the biggest debut in the franchise’s history.

The reboot, written and directed by Zach Cregger, grossed $60 million over its first three days across 3,684 North American theatres, comfortably beating Sony Pictures’ initial $40 million projection and even the studio’s revised $53 million to $55 million estimate.

With a production budget of $75 million, the new Resident Evil also became a rare horror franchise eighth instalment to open at a record level. The film received a B+ CinemaScore, with its domestic audience skewing younger and male.

The latest entry has already made a striking comparison with its predecessors. Resident Evil: Afterlife, previously the franchise’s highest-grossing film domestically, finished its North American run with $60.1 million. Cregger’s reboot nearly matched that entire lifetime figure in a single weekend.

The franchise began with Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil in 2002, starring Milla Jovovich, who returned for five sequels before the series was rebooted in 2021 with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. The previous reboot underperformed, while the franchise’s films have collectively generated more than $1.2 billion worldwide.

The new film’s audience was 65 per cent male, while 74 per cent of ticket buyers were under the age of 35. International markets added another $43.8 million from 62 territories, taking the film’s global opening haul to $103.8 million.

At the centre of Cregger’s story is a medical courier, played by Austin Abrams, attempting to deliver a valuable item amid a deadly viral outbreak in Raccoon City. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser also star.

The opening also extends Cregger’s box office run. Resident Evil has surpassed the $43.5 million debut of his previous film, Weapons, which Warner Bros released in August 2025. That film went on to win an Oscar.

The reboot is also Cregger’s best-reviewed film so far. It currently holds a 96 per cent critics’ approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 92 per cent audience score, making it the year’s top-reviewed horror release alongside another title at the same critics’ rating.

The strong launch could now put a sequel firmly on the agenda, although Cregger has several other projects in the pipeline, including The Flood and a prequel centred on Gladys from Weapons. Before Resident Evil opened, he said he could not help thinking about other directions the story could take.

Behind Resident Evil, Practical Magic 2 took second place with an estimated $12.2 million in its second weekend, taking its North American total to around $50 million. The Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman sequel is tracking for a roughly 59 per cent weekend decline but has already passed the $46.7 million domestic lifetime gross of the 1998 original.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day landed in third place with $6.5 million in its eighth weekend. The Tom Holland-led Marvel film is expected to take its North American total to around $944.5 million, leaving the $1 billion domestic milestone still in sight.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey added $4.9 million in its 10th weekend to reach $609.7 million domestically, while Coyote vs. Acme rounded out the top five with $4.3 million in its fourth weekend, taking its North American total to approximately $54.6 million.

Transformers: The Movie returned for its 40th anniversary with $3.3 million for Fathom Entertainment, while Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe thriller The Weight opened ninth with $2.3 million from 1,504 North American screens.

Horror’s broader box office run is also gathering momentum. Films in the genre have collectively generated roughly $1.166 billion domestically in 2026, surpassing the entire $1 billion-plus horror haul recorded in 2017. The figure already represents 82 per cent of last year’s record $1.426 billion.

With Jessica Chastain’s Other Mommy still due on 9 October, the horror genre has more ammunition waiting in the wings. But for now, Resident Evil has made the loudest noise, turning a familiar outbreak into the franchise’s biggest opening yet.