‘Resident Evil’ Presale Numbers Just Set Zach Cregger Up to Shatter Franchise Box Office Records

Sony has quietly built one of the more reliable September playbooks in Hollywood over the past couple of years, using the traditionally slower late-summer window to launch horror titles with genuine blockbuster ambitions. That strategy paid off in a major way last year, and the studio appears ready to repeat the formula with an entirely different franchise this time around.

Zach Cregger has spent the past few years transforming from a cult favorite into one of horror’s most bankable names, following ‘Barbarian’ with the genuine box office phenomenon ‘Weapons,’ which pulled in $270 million globally off a $43.5 million domestic opening. That momentum made him an obvious choice to take the reins of a franchise reboot, and early numbers suggest the gamble is paying off in a big way.

Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ had an excellent start in presales, and driven by a huge number of IMAX and PLF screens, the film is now on track for a $60 million to $80 million domestic debut, a figure that would make it not just the biggest opening in the franchise’s history, but potentially the largest of Cregger’s career by a wide margin.

The scale of that projected jump becomes clearer when stacked against the franchise’s actual track record. No ‘Resident Evil’ film has ever cracked $27 million domestically in its opening weekend, with 2010’s ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ currently holding the record at $26.6 million, while the original 2002 installment opened to just $17.7 million and 2021’s ‘Welcome to Raccoon City’ managed only $5.3 million.

Tracking on the film has moved upward at a notably fast pace in recent weeks. Box Office Pro initially projected a conservative $30 million to $40 million opening, before revising that estimate to $40 million to $50 million as ticket sales data started rolling in. The newest projections pushing the range as high as $80 million represent a dramatic escalation even from those already-optimistic earlier forecasts.

Much of that momentum appears tied to the film’s IMAX presence, marking the first new wide release to be shot for IMAX since Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey.’ ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ previously held the distinction of being the franchise’s only prior IMAX release, but Cregger’s version is leaning far more heavily into premium large format screens as a core part of its rollout.

This isn’t the first time Sony has used September to launch a horror title with real box office teeth. Last year, ‘Infinity Castle’ opened to $70 million during the same late-summer window, and ‘Resident Evil’ now looks positioned to match or potentially exceed that number, marking the second consecutive year the studio has treated September as prime real estate for a genuine event release rather than typical post-summer counterprogramming.

Cregger’s film follows Bryan, a medical courier played by ‘Weapons’ alumnus Austin Abrams, who gets pulled into a nightmarish, non-stop fight for survival after a routine delivery spirals into chaos. Notably, Cregger built the story as an entirely original narrative rather than adapting any specific game’s plot, drawing structural inspiration from across the franchise’s history instead.

With ‘Resident Evil’ set to hit theaters September 18, these presale numbers suggest audiences are responding strongly to both Cregger’s growing reputation and the franchise’s first real modern reinvention in years.

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