Resident Evil’s big $8.8M previews point to a $60–70M opening

Zach Cregger is very much on a roll. He made Barbarian for $4.5 million and it over performed to $40.8M domestic, and then followed it up with Weapons, a film that did $151.6 million and even won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, extremely rare within the horror genre. Hot off that film, Sony handed him the Resident Evil franchise and a $75M budget, surprising considering the franchise has never topped more than $60M domestically. Clearly, that was a sign of confidence in Zach Cregger to make something special of the decaying franchise - the last film, Welcome to Raccoon City, did just $17M domestically and $41M worldwide in 2021.

It looks like Sony’s bet on Cregger will pay off in spades, as Resident Evil has continued to grow this last month, with tracking and presales moving from what looked like a $30M opening to now what looks likely to easily break $50M and potentially hit $60M+, which would be more in 3 days than any Resident Evil movie has done in its entire domestic run. This preview is a day delayed, and so we do have the preview numbers already: it did a huge $8.8M. Compare that to Scream 7 earlier this year, which did $7.8 million on its way to a $63M opening weekend. Even if Resident Evil ends up more front loaded, which is unlikely given the strong reviews, this locks in a $50M+ opening, with that now being the floor for the weekend. At this point, $60M+ is now more likely.

Reviews are at 96% from 151 critics, while the audience score is also strong at 91%, so it looks like this will be a word of mouth hit and not a one weekend wonder. That also bodes well for an opening above $60M, as the word of mouth spreads and people find time to see this as soon as they can.

Anything over $56 million gives it the seventh-biggest September opening ever, past The Nun’s $53.8 million. That’s probably where it lands, since Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’s $70.6 million from last September is the sixth biggest and that may be a bridge too far here. Still, it could feasibly get close to that level and eclipse Scream 7’s $63M making it the second biggest horror opening this year, behind only Backrooms’ $81M. Before the weekend, we had our projections at $51–$62M, but now we’re expecting somewhere between $60–70M for the weekend and strong holds over the next few weeks as it heads easily to $150M+ domestically. This is exactly what the September box office needed now that The Odyssey and Spider-Man are winding down their runs.

After a solid but underwhelming launch last weekend, Practical Magic should suffer a somewhat steep fall due to burning off its built in audience and at the same time not really breaking out to casual moviegoers like expected on opening weekend. The 38% Tomatometer took all the oxygen out of a breakout last weekend and now it has to contend with only so-so word of mouth. It would be surprising to see this drop any better than 50%, and we’re expecting it to fall closer to 60% - expect $11–14M and a $50M total after 10 days.

After a $30M start, we never thought this one was going to make it to $100M, and if this weekend behaves as we predict, it should end its run closer to about $70M. With middling overseas performance so far, a $75M budget, and higher expectations before launch, it’s hard to see this as anything but a disappointing performance, even if it’s still doing solid numbers. It also continues Warner Bros. not good very bad year at the box office - they still haven’t had a single movie break $100M domestically, the first time that has happened in 25 years outside the COVID years. Thank god for Dune Part 3, coming to save them in December.

Ten weekends in and Nolan’s film is the most durable thing on the chart by a distance, with legs about to hit a huge 5x off of an already oversized $123M opening weekend. It crossed $600 million on Sunday, and spent 62 days at over $1M a day - the 5th biggest of all time on that metric. Thursday was the first day it fell below that mark, and that’s also a factor this weekend: Resident Evil finally grabs most of the IMAX screens away from The Odyssey, and those are the exact screens that have been keeping it so strong these last few weeks (although it will keep the 70MM locations for another week or two).

Because of this, we expect this weekend to fall greater than 40%, keeping it neck and neck with Spider-Man for the #3 spot. It’s still headed to around $620M domestically, only just below Barbie and Deadpool & Wolverine, which both finished around $635M off of much bigger opening weekends.

This was the week Spider-Man finally broke the all-time domestic record, passing Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Tuesday. Sony’s growth with this franchise is remarkable: Homecoming did $334.6 million domestic and $878.9 million worldwide, Far From Home pushed that to $391.4 million and $1.13 billion, and No Way Home took $814.8 million with three Spider-Men sharing the poster. This one has beaten all three at $2.5B and counting.

That being said, its run is now wrapping up, and Resident Evil should take a chunk of its direct audience’s attention away from it, more than The Odyssey which has an older audience unlikely to be swayed by a new horror flick. Expect a 50% drop this weekend as it heads to a total of around $950M or so.

This one is at a rare 100% on 43 reviews… that’s impressive even if expectations are modest in the US for this film, just like all previous Aardman films. They remain a niche family play. We’d love to see this get to $5M this weekend, but likely it comes in a little lower. The ceiling: Chicken Run opened to $17.5 million in 2000 and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit to $16.0 million in 2005, but those were a long time ago now, and no Aardman release has come near either since. For the bigger picture here, watch how it performs in the UK where these films are much more popular.