Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil has opened to an estimated $60 million in North America, setting a new opening-weekend record for the film franchise. The Sony Pictures release earned the total from 3,684 theaters in the United States and Canada, according to studio estimates released Sunday. International markets added another $48.3 million, bringing the movie’s worldwide opening to $108.3 million.
The $60 million domestic debut comfortably surpasses the series’ previous opening record of $26.6 million, set by Resident Evil: Afterlife in 2010. Afterlife ultimately finished with $60.1 million domestically, meaning Cregger’s film has already nearly matched that entire North American run in its first weekend. Final weekend figures are expected Monday, so the current totals remain estimates.
Resident Evil also delivered the largest opening of Cregger’s directing career. His previous horror film Weapons opened to $43.5 million domestically in 2025 before finishing with roughly $270 million worldwide, while Barbarian was produced on a far smaller scale. The new Resident Evil entered the weekend with considerably stronger franchise recognition and a reported production budget of around $75 million before marketing.
Critical reception has also been unusually strong for a Resident Evil adaptation. The film currently holds a 95% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes from nearly 200 reviews, after briefly sitting at 96% as reviews began arriving. That response made it the highest-rated Resident Evil movie to date and placed it among the strongest-reviewed major video game adaptations, following its record-setting critical reception before release.
Audience reaction has remained positive as well, with a 91% verified audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B+ CinemaScore. Exit-poll data cited by the Associated Press shows that 66% of the opening-weekend audience was male, while 75% was under the age of 35. Strong reviews and audience response appear to have helped the film outperform pre-release expectations, which had generally placed its domestic debut closer to the $40 million to $50 million range.
Cregger’s Resident Evil tells an original story rather than directly adapting one of Capcom’s games. Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier whose final delivery of the night pulls him into an outbreak in Raccoon City. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Johnno Wilson and Paul Walter Hauser also appear, with Cregger directing from a screenplay written with Shay Hatten.
The film’s approach had already drawn attention before opening weekend, with early reviews praising its horror, humor and game-inspired structure. Sony and Constantin Film positioned the project as a fresh cinematic interpretation of Resident Evil rather than another continuation of the Milla Jovovich films or 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City. PlayStation Productions is also involved as a producer.
The strong theatrical debut arrives during a busy period for the wider Resident Evil franchise. Capcom is continuing to bring its recent games to additional hardware, including Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3 and Resident Evil 4 on Nintendo Switch 2 in October. That gives the series simultaneous momentum across both games and film heading into the final months of 2026.
Resident Evil now stands at an estimated $108.3 million worldwide after its first weekend, though it still has a long way to go before challenging the franchise’s highest lifetime global grosses. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter remains the series’ biggest worldwide performer with more than $300 million during its theatrical run. What Cregger’s reboot has already secured, however, is the strongest opening weekend in the franchise’s history and the biggest theatrical launch yet for a Resident Evil movie.
