A quarter-century into its run as one of horror's most durable video-game adaptations, the "Resident Evil" franchise has never made this much money this fast, and it has never been reviewed this well. The Sony Pictures reboot, directed by Zach Cregger and starring Austin Abrams, took in $8.8 million in Thursday preview screenings ahead of its Friday nationwide opening — more than eight times the previous franchise preview record of roughly $1 million, set by 2016's "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter," according to box office trackers.
Industry estimates put the film on track for a domestic opening weekend in the $40 million to $50 million range, which would top the $26.6 million franchise high set by 2010's "Resident Evil: Afterlife" and give the series its best debut in its 24-year screen history, according to figures reported by Deadline. Combined with a strong overseas start, worldwide opening totals were tracking toward roughly $80 million.
A different kind of Raccoon City story
Cregger's version departs from the Milla Jovovich-led films that carried the franchise from 2002 to 2016 and from 2021's poorly received "Welcome to Raccoon City" reboot. Written by Cregger and Shay Hatten, the new film follows Abrams as Bryan, an ordinary medical courier caught inside Raccoon City as a viral outbreak turns its residents into monsters, with Paul Walter Hauser in a supporting role. The film runs a lean 90 minutes and carries an R rating.
It is Cregger's first film since 2025's acclaimed horror hit "Weapons," which opened with $5.7 million in previews before going on to earn $43 million in its opening weekend. "Resident Evil" has already cleared that preview mark by a wide margin, a performance analysts are calling a career-defining weekend for the director.
The best-reviewed 'Resident Evil' yet
Critics have been unusually enthusiastic for a franchise better known for jump scares than acclaim. The film holds a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from more than 180 reviews, easily the best score any live-action entry in the series has received; the next-highest previously stood at 39%. The site's critics consensus called the film "a propulsive tribute to the pleasure and terror of playing a truly spooky video game," crediting Abrams' comic timing alongside the scares.
It's the ideal midnight movie, an adroit balance of the funny and the macabre, the frightening and the ridiculous.
Kyle Smith, The Wall Street Journal
Audiences have responded almost as warmly, with a 91% approval score on the review-aggregation site's Popcornmeter as of Friday.
The result arrives at a moment when video-game adaptations have increasingly outperformed expectations at the box office, following successes such as HBO's "The Last of Us" and Universal's "Super Mario Bros. Movie" franchise. For Sony, which has cycled through several failed attempts to relaunch "Resident Evil" as a tentpole property since Capcom's game franchise debuted in 1996, a genuine crossover hit — one embraced by critics as much as fans — had proven elusive until now.
Full opening-weekend numbers were expected to be finalized Sunday, with studio and industry analysts watching closely for whether the film's momentum holds into a second weekend against upcoming new releases.
