‘Resident Evil’ $53M-$60M Opening Is Best For Zach Cregger, Series

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SATURDAY AM: Zach Cregger‘s R-rated Resident Evil is giving the fall box office a blood transfusion with an opening that could approach $60M per rivals, this after last weekend’s less robust start of Practical Magic 2. As of this AM, Sony is calling the 3-day at $53M-$55M.

I don’t know what slowdown they’re seeing, but there isn’t one with Resident Evil achieving the franchise’s best CinemaScore ever of a B+. There’s plenty of positivity from audiences and critics to keep this feature take of the Capcom game locked and loaded for the season. The concern is always today, Saturday, as a do-or-die day for any prolific title. The consensus seems to be that Saturday could file around $20M today, -24% from Friday/previews of $26.3M. As we told you, the Resident Evils have a history of some great holds between their Friday/previews and Saturdays.

Screen Engine/Rentrak’s PostTrak exits went up to a 71% definite recommend for the general audience. The 35-44 demo also loves the movie at 76% definite recommend, in addition to Latino and Hispanic moviegoers (74%) and men over 25 (73%).

If the Sony/Constantin film’s numbers hit $60M, it will wind up as the 7th best opening in September. Yesterday’s $26.3M topples the entire domestic take of the last movie, Welcome to Raccoon City ($17M) and close to the final domestic of 2016’s Final Chapter ($26.8M).

Still, even at $53M+, it’s a nice double play here by Sony after notching the highest grossing movie ever at the U.S./Canada box office, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that Destin Daniel Cretton directed movie arriving at $944M+ by EOD tomorrow.

Also, at that level, it’s the biggest opening for Cregger at the box office overtaking last year’s Weapons ($43.5M). That original horror movie about children running out of their bedrooms into the night to George Harrison music did a 3.5x multiple ending its North American run at $151.5M.

Updated stats has walk-up business at 54% for Resident Evil (meaning purchased their tickets same day). Forty-six percent came because it’s part of a franchise they love, while 37% came for Cregger (triple note, another case of a movie director becoming the star, which is always great for the theatrical business). Overall 66% guys to 34% women.

PLFs and Imax are repping a huge 53% of the weekend so far with Imax alone at 16%, and PLFs at 37%. While playing huge everywhere, Resident Evil is best in East, South Central, and West with the AMC Burbank in LA, the highest grossing location for the pic at $117,4K through Friday.

All in the weekend is weighing in at $111M, which is +51% from the same frame a year ago when Sony/Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer…Infinity Castle was in its second weekend with a No. 1 take of $17.3M.

Saturday AM estimates…there’s a run-off for 6th place.

10. Buddy (RSA) 1,532 (-188) theaters Fri $561,4K , 3-day $1.94M (-46%), total $24.85M/Wk 4
By the end of this weekend, the movie will become Roadside Attractions third highest grossing movie after I Can Only Image ($83.4M) and Manchester by the Sea ($47.6M, which they distributed for Amazon pre-their own theatrical distribution apparatus), and overtaking Oscar winner Judy ($24.3M).

FRIDAY PM UPDATE: Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is bound for the best opening this franchise has ever seen in its 24 years of feature existence; this weekend armed up with at least $50M, and a chance for more. It’s also the best domestic start ever for Cregger as a filmmaker, unloading Weapons ($43.5M). Today plus previews is looking like $24M at 3,684 theaters.

Note the weekend opening alone is more than several Resident Evils’ final domestic takes, including the first movie ($40.1M), 2012’s Retribution ($42.3M), 2016’s Final Chapter ($26.8M), 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City ($17M) and possibly 2004’s Apocalypse ($50.1M) and 2007’s Extinction ($50.6M). Walk-up last night was solid at 52% (meaning share of people who bought tickets same day).

Last night’s PostTrak from Screen Engine and Rentrak showed a fantastic 70% definite recommend with men over 25 (biggest quad at 45%) giving it the best definite recommend at 75%. In terms of attendance, men under 25 were next at 24%, then women over 25 at 21% (a good sign, 28% came with a spouse/partner or g.f. or b.f.), with women under 25 at 10%. Diversity demos were 41% Caucasian, 28% Latino and Hispanic, 13% Black and 11% Asian American and 7% Native American/other.

It will be interesting to see where the CinemaScore lands tonight as the highest grade ever achieved by a Resident Evil movie was a B, and that happened three times before: the original film, Apocalypse and Final Chapter.

Overall, word of mouth is positive on social per RelishMix: “The crowd has been waiting to nerd out over crank puzzles again. Fans are treating this like a survival-horror fantasy draft, wish-listing item boxes, ink ribbons and hexagonal cranks with the specificity of people who’ve replayed these games until their thumbs cramped. There’s trust building around Zach Cregger, with commenters citing his horror pedigree as a reason for cautious-to-full-blown optimism, and plenty of side-by-side comparisons to Silent Hill framing this as finally getting the vibe right instead of just cosplaying the games.”

Warner Bros/Alcon’s Practical Magic 2 is looking at $4M in its second Friday, for a second frame between $12M-$14M, -53% to -60%, for a running cume on the high end at $51.8M by EOD Sunday. That will put the sequel ahead of the entire lifetime North American run of the 1998 movie ($46.7M).

As far as summer’s titans, Sony/Marvel Studio’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day appears ahead of Universal’s The Odyssey for the weekend, $6M to $5M in spots three and four. The highest grossing movie ever at the domestic box office will end its eighth weekend at 3,017 theaters with a running cume of $944M. Meanwhile Odyssey is booked at 1,546 powered by 35 Imax 70MM hubs, and its cume by Sunday will stand at $609.8M through weekend ten. On a global basis as we told you ($1.09B+), its Universal’s highest grossing topping Jurassic World, but the dinos still rule as Uni’s highest grossing ever stateside with $653.4M.

Ketchup Entertainment’s Coyote vs. Acme remains the family choice in its fourth frame at 3,035 theaters with $4.2M, -34%, for a running cume by Sunday of $54.5M.

This is followed by Fathom’s 40th anniversary re-release of Transformers animated movie with around $2.5M, and a running cume since yesterday of $3.8M at 1,454 sites.

UPDATED, 7:37 AM: Sony/Constantin’s Resident Evil came in with $8.8M previews Thursday night. Pretty damn good. PostTrak is 4.5 out of 5 stars. The Zach Cregger-directed movie played at 3,166 theaters.

Again, don’t think that we were in a funk last weekend with Practical Magic 2 coming in at the lower end of its forecast with $30M. The movie was supposed to attract moms and daughters and only wound up pulling in moms. We’re in a better space heading into the weekend.

1. Practical Magic 2 (WB) 4,146 theaters, Wk $37.8M/Wk 1

2. The Odyssey (Uni) 1,983 theaters, Wk $11.7M (-45%), Total $604.8M/Wk 9

3. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony) 3,303 theaters, Wk $11.2M (-59%), Total $938M/Wk 7

4. Runner (Angel) 2,568 theaters, Wk $8.8M/Wk 1

5. Coyote vs. Acme (Ketchup) 3,355 theaters, Wk $8.7M (-54%)/, Total $50.3M/ Wk 3

PREVIOUS EXCLUSIVE: Buckle up your 4DX seat because it’s gonna be a fun weekend, as out of the gate, Zach Cregger’s take on Resident Evil already is posting the best previews ever for the franchise with tonight north of $8M and maybe even north of $9M.

The outlook going into the weekend was $40M-$50M. Those who are smart, inside the industry and study ticket sales believe the movie has a shot to go over $50M.

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Similar to how this Resident Evil is posting the series’ best critical score on Rotten Tomatoes (now at 96% certified fresh), it is posting the best audience score as well, at 91%. On Rotten Tomatoes, the previous best audience score belonged to the original 2002 film at 67%.

Previews for the R-rated Sony/Constantin feature adaptation of the Capcom video game began at 2 p.m. stateside.

Tonight’s estimated take easily decimates the franchise’s previous high (which wasn’t much), 2016’s Resident Evil: Final Chapter at $1M. That was the first time a Resident Evil movie posted seven digits in its previews.

But get a load of this: Resident Evil‘s previews even on the low end of $8M scorch Cregger’s Weapons ($5.75M previews, $43.5M opening), Scream 7 (yes, $7.8M, $63.6M opening, but put a pin in that one), Mortal Kombat 2 ($5.2M, $38.5M, a Midway video game adapted into an R-rated franchise), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 ($6.5M, $60.1M; yes, we know that’s a family film, but it’s based on a video game. Calm down).

Here’s the thing, the Friday/preview-to-Saturday holds for some previous Resident Evil movies are pretty good with 2017’s The Final Chapter +1.4% between those two days, the original 2002 movie +1% and 2010’s Resident Evil: Afterlife -9%, that pic holding the series previous domestic opening record at $26.6M). The point is, because it’s horror and because it’s a different iteration of Resident Evil from the previous Milla Jovovich films, the wait-and-see is just how front-loaded this movie is. Scream 7 was a completely different animal with the return of Neve Campbell to the franchise, and tracking sources tonight advise not to comp Resident Evil to that horror pic (at least not yet). It was Cregger’s vision here to make a more authentic adaptation of the games that he has avidly played.

The net $75M Constantin/Sony production of Resident Evil is playing in PLFs and Imax, with the latter format’s 70MM still on a crusade with The Odyssey (about 35 auditoriums).

Tonight’s figures come from distribution sources, not the studio, so take everything with a grain of salt.