Resident Evil is heading for an opening weekend around $60 million in North America after earning an estimated $26.3 million on Friday. That single day nearly matched the biggest full opening weekend in the franchise’s history.
The Friday number includes $8.8 million from Thursday preview screenings. Sony opened the movie in 3,684 theaters, producing an estimated $7,139 average per location for the day.
These figures are still estimates. Sunday’s studio projection and the final reported weekend total can move, especially when a large share of the audience arrived during previews.
The franchise record is already in reach
Resident Evil: Afterlife held the series record with a $26.65 million domestic opening in 2010. The new film came within roughly $350,000 of that total on Friday alone.
If the weekend finishes near $60 million, Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil will more than double the previous record and become the first live-action entry in the series to open like a major modern horror event.
The early estimate is lower than the $67.05 million prediction published before Friday. That is not a sign that the movie is struggling. It reflects how heavily the opening was concentrated in previews and the first day.
Previews accounted for about 33.5% of Friday’s total. Horror audiences often rush to the earliest screenings, which makes Saturday and Sunday harder to predict from Friday alone. Current models place the likely result around the low $60 millions, with a wider possible range on either side.
An original story brought viewers back to Raccoon City
Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier whose overnight delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital turns into a fight through a viral outbreak. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser are also part of the principal cast.
The movie does not retell Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield’s campaign from Resident Evil 2. Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten created a new character whose route crosses a familiar city while using game-inspired ideas such as limited supplies, changing environments and the pressure to keep moving.
That approach gave the release two audiences to reach. Longtime fans could look for the architecture, creatures and survival-horror logic of the games, while newcomers could follow Bryan without knowing the timeline of every previous movie or game.
The result is already far ahead of the franchise’s recent theatrical performance. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City opened much smaller in 2021, while several earlier sequels depended more heavily on international markets than on a record domestic start.
The final weekend number is still coming
The $60 million figure is a Saturday estimate, not a final box-office total. Studio projections normally arrive Sunday, followed by actual weekend figures after more theaters report.
What is already clear is that Resident Evil has delivered the largest first day in the movie franchise. Even a finish below the current estimate would leave it comfortably ahead of the old opening-weekend record.
For a series that has repeatedly rebooted its approach to the games, this opening gives the newest version a strong start. The next question is whether audiences keep showing up after the fans who booked the earliest screenings.
