‘Resident Evil’ Scaring Up Franchise Best Previews With $8M-$9M & Rotten Tomatoes 91% Audience Score

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 is already 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. Similar to how this Resident Evil is posting the series best critical score on Rotten Tomatoes (now at 96% certified fresh), so is it 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 Sony/Constantin R-rated feature adaptation of the Capcom video game began at 2PM stateside. Watch on Deadline 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 The Final Chapter +1.4% between those two days, the original 2002 movie +1%, and 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 in 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 which 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.