Resident Evil Is Tracking for a $35M Opening — And a Franchise Record

Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is currently tracking for a $35 million domestic opening weekend, according to Deadline. If that projection holds when the film opens September 18, it would beat the franchise’s existing opening-weekend record — a mark Resident Evil: Afterlife has held since 2010 at $26.65 million. Boxoffice Pro’s own long-range forecast has been more aggressive still, raising its range from $30–40 million to $40–50 million as pre-release tracking has strengthened. Nothing here is a confirmed result yet — it’s industry tracking, and tracking can move in either direction before a film actually opens.

How the Projection Stacks Up Against Every Previous Film

Using consistent domestic 3-day opening weekend figures from Box Office Mojo, here’s where Cregger’s film would land against the seven previous theatrical entries:

Film	Domestic opening weekend
Resident Evil (2002)	$17,707,106
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)	$23,036,273
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)	$23,678,580
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)	$26,650,264
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)	$21,052,227
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017)	$13,601,682
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)	$5,319,280
Resident Evil (2026)	~$35,000,000 (tracking, not final)

At Deadline’s $35 million figure, the new film would open roughly 31% above Afterlife’s $26.65 million record. If Boxoffice Pro’s higher range holds instead, the margin would be considerably wider. Either way, the comparison only means something once the actual number is reported Monday morning — projections in both directions have been wrong before.

Why This Record Would Actually Mean Something

The franchise’s opening-weekend trajectory has been on a long decline. It peaked with Afterlife in 2010, then dropped through Retribution and The Final Chapter before Welcome to Raccoon City opened to just $5.3 million in 2021 — a collapse steep enough that Constantin Film moved on from that continuity entirely rather than continuing it. A $35 million opening wouldn’t just edge past a 16-year-old record; it would reverse a trend that had been pointing toward the franchise’s box-office relevance running out.

That context is also why the projection shouldn’t be read as more than what it is. A strong tracking number reflects awareness, presale activity and audience-interest polling — it says nothing about whether the film is good, whether longtime fans approve of Cregger’s approach, or whether it will hold well in its second and third weekends. Franchises have opened big and faded fast before.

What “Tracking” Actually Measures

Box-office tracking blends several inputs: audience awareness surveys, ticket presales, comparisons to similar past releases, and exhibitor-reported demand. Different trade outlets weigh those inputs differently, which is exactly why Deadline and Boxoffice Pro are currently citing different ranges for the same film. Neither number is a guess pulled from nowhere, but neither is a confirmed gross — that’s why coverage uses words like “tracking toward” and “projected” rather than “earned” or “made.” Actual opening numbers won’t exist until after the weekend plays out.

What the Movie Itself Is Doing Differently

Part of the interest driving this tracking is that Cregger isn’t continuing the Paul W.S. Anderson/Milla Jovovich series or Welcome to Raccoon City — this is a full reboot built around a new character, Bryan, in a story Cregger has said takes place in the world of Resident Evil 2. For what that means for viewers who know the games versus those who don’t, our full breakdown of the movie’s game connections covers what Cregger has actually confirmed about the adaptation.

Resident Evil opens domestically on September 18, 2026.