Sep 21, 2026 11:56am IST
‘Resident Evil’ Bests ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ With Opening Weekend Box Office, Breaking Franchise Record
Zach Cregger undertook the task of rebooting the “Resident Evil” franchise with his latest project. Releasing a movie of the same name as the original video game it is based on, the film has already surpassed any expectations that the audience had of it. The 2026 film domestically clocked $60 million in its opening weekend. Moreover, its worldwide opening collections stand at $108.3 million, far exceeding the earlier estimates of $40 million to $50 million.
With “Resident Evil,” Cregger has once again challenged his own record, overtaking the weekend numbers of his 2025 film, “Weapons,” which opened with $70 million worldwide. This makes it the highest among all adaptations of the video game across 24 years. Previously, the 2010 film “Resident Evil: Afterlife” was the largest debut for the franchise, opening with $26 million domestically.
Related Stories
These collections exceed the global lifetime of the original 2002 film of the same name that earned $102.9 million. To cross past the final box office across all the projects in the franchise, it has to collect over $312 million, which was the final for the decade-old “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter”.
The eighth instalment in the lineup, “Resident Evil,” and comes in five years after its last failed attempt with “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City”. It scored $42 million worldwide against its $25 million budget with an opening number of $5.3 million. Meanwhile, the latest film has already recovered its $75 million budget. It is competing with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock’s “Practical Magic 2,” Tom Holland’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and the Christopher Nolan directorial “The Odyssey” at the theaters.
Popular on Variety
The love for horror in 2026 has continued in Raccoon City, with Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser joining the reboot. Director Cregger reunites with Abrams after their successful run with “Weapons” last year.
Comments are moderated. They may be edited for clarity and reprinting in whole or in part in Variety publications.