Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil opened to $108.3 million worldwide, a launch that gave the film the best start the franchise had ever seen and delivered Cregger his biggest opening as a filmmaker. The debut also pushed past the reported $70 million worldwide opening for Weapons, the film that had been his career high until now.
The size of the opening is what makes the number land. Resident Evil did not just lead the series; it cleared the old benchmark set by 2012’s Resident Evil: Retribution, which opened to $70.6 million worldwide before finishing at $240 million. It also moved beyond the original 2002 movie’s entire $102.9 million global run, while the latest title’s opening was already bigger than the final $41.9 million total for Welcome to Raccoon City.
That matters because the first frame was strong almost everywhere it showed up. The film’s $48.3 million international debut was the best horror-movie international debut of the year so far, and it outpaced Backrooms’ $36.6 million on the overseas side. On a like-for-like basis at current exchange rates, Resident Evil was 66% ahead of Weapons, 33% above A Quiet Place: Day One and 18% in front of Alien: Romulus, showing that the start was not a narrow win but a broad one.
The reported opening still does not represent the full picture. Thirteen percent of foreign markets had yet to open when the numbers landed, so the worldwide total was still moving even as the franchise record fell. South Africa was set to open on Sept. 23, Thailand and Central Asia on Sept. 24, Japan on Oct. 9, and China remained undated, leaving room for the final tally to climb above the $108.3 million mark.
For now, the result puts Resident Evil in a strong early position in the year’s horror race, behind only Backrooms’ $118 million worldwide start, and it gives Cregger a new career high at a moment when the rollout is still unfinished. The next question is not whether the film opened well enough. It is how much higher the total can go once the remaining markets come in.
