'A cheat code': Zach Cregger needed one Resident Evil to do what six Jovovich films couldn't
Six Milla Jovovich films never got past $60.1 million in America. Zach Cregger nearly matched that in his opening weekend, and is now past the series' two best US runs put together. Four
Six Milla Jovovich films never got past $60.1 million in America. Zach Cregger nearly matched that in his opening weekend, and is now past the series' two best US runs put together.
Four weekends in, Sony and Constantin's Resident Evil is still refusing to die. The Zach Cregger reboot took an estimated $8.2 million from 3,085 cinemas over 9–11 October, down just 35%, and its domestic total now stands at $138.4 million. That puts it third in a weekend owned by Jessica Chastain's Other Mommy.
On r/boxoffice, one commenter summed it up in a single line, and it is hard to argue with:
"Hiring Zach Cregger to direct your video game movie is a cheat code."
The maths backs them up. The two highest-grossing Resident Evil films in the US before this one were Afterlife ($60.1 million, 2010) and Apocalypse ($51.2 million, 2004). Together they make $111.3 million. Cregger's film cleared that with room to spare, and it runs about 95 minutes.
Six films, one Alice, no $100 million
Paul W.S. Anderson's franchise ran from 2002 to 2017, with Milla Jovovich as Alice in all six instalments. It made serious money abroad, but never cracked $61 million in America. The domestic scorecard:
- The Jovovich years: $40.1 million, $51.2 million, $50.6 million, $60.1 million, $42.3 million and $26.8 million. That is $271.1 million across six films.
- The 2021 reboot: Welcome to Raccoon City limped to $17 million in total.
- The Cregger version: a $60 million opening weekend on 18 September, a B+ CinemaScore (the series had never done better than a B), and $138.4 million so far. That is already half of what all six Jovovich films made combined.
Cregger did it without Alice, without Leon or Jill, and without a single character from the games. The lead is Austin Abrams as Bryan, a medical courier who drives into a T-virus outbreak on a snowy night, with Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser alongside him.
Anderson had six goes at Resident Evil. Cregger needed one, and he didn't even use Alice.
The budget was a reported $75 million, and the brief was to go fast. In Cregger's words, the challenge was to "floor it at minute six and not take my foot off the gas".
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China, the Kraven jokes and a director who says no
Through its third weekend the film had $245.4 million worldwide, and Deadline reported exclusively that China, where it opened on 5 October, delivered $20 million in two days, on course for about $35 million in its first week. That will push Cregger past Weapons ($270 million) as his biggest film. It is also the one record still out of reach: The Final Chapter made $312.2 million worldwide, $159.5 million of it in China.
For Sony, it is a cheeky bit of redemption. Two years ago the studio was a punchline over Kraven the Hunter. This autumn it has Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the biggest domestic grosser ever, and a video game adaptation people actually recommend to their mates.
Fans now want a sequel, and they want Cregger on it. The awkward part is that he has already told Deadline he isn't a franchise man.
"I'm not going to go tackle any other franchises — just because I'm a writer, and I want to write whatever I want to write."
— Zach Cregger, to Deadline
His next projects are both dated for 2028: the sci-fi film Flood at Warner Bros., with Jennifer Lawrence, and the Weapons prequel Gladys, which is still waiting for a director. Sony has a cheat code, then. It just isn't sure it gets to use it twice.
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