Directors beating their own box office record is nothing unusual in Hollywood, but doing it twice in just fourteen months with two original-feeling horror movies is much less common. Zach Cregger’s Weapons became one of 2025’s standout original hits and even earned Amy Madigan an Oscar, and now his latest solo directorial effort has pulled off another result that probably wasn’t the easiest one to predict.
It took a video game franchise that critics had spent two decades dunking on and turned it into both his best-reviewed and, as of this week, his highest-grossing movie in every category that matters. Resident Evil has now crossed $152 million domestically per the latest figures, officially moving past the $151.5 million that Weapons banked in North America last year, and the film is tracking to land somewhere in the $380 to $390 million range worldwide by the end of this weekend.
Resident Evil Is Now Zach Cregger’s Biggest Movie Yet
The worldwide crown was never really in doubt, since the reboot blew past Weapons’ $270 million global total back in its fourth weekend on the strength of a $40.6 million China launch. But the domestic milestone arguably means more. International grosses were always the old Milla Jovovich films’ safety net, with The Final Chapter pulling $312 million worldwide off a meager $26.8 million domestic run. Cregger’s version is the first entry in this franchise’s 24-year live-action history to be a genuine hit at home, clearing $100 million in North America when no previous installment had managed even a third of that.
Rather than adapting any particular game, Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten built an original story around Bryan, an overwhelmed medical courier played by Austin Abrams whose last-minute delivery run into Raccoon City collapses into a single nightmarish night of outbreak survival, with Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser in support. That decision irritated some of us before release, and it’s fair to say the film works more as a Cregger movie wearing the franchise’s skin than a faithful translation. The results are hard to argue with, though. The reboot sits at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the best-reviewed video game adaptation ever on the aggregator, with a consensus that reads:
“Packing unforgettable scares into a sleek runtime while Austin Abrams’ crack comedic timing provides crucial levity, Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is a propulsive tribute to the pleasure and terror of playing a truly spooky video game.”
Zach Cregger Just Beat His Own Box Office Record Again
More than a few critics reached for Evil Dead 2 comparisons, with Abrams’ flailing everyman drawing Bruce Campbell parallels, and that lineage feels about right for a movie this committed to being scary and funny in the same breath. There’s a sensible caveat in all of this, which is that Resident Evil arrived with a $75 million budget and a legacy brand behind it, so beating a $38 million original like Weapons was never a fair fight on resources. It also quietly resets expectations for video game horror on film, a lane that was presumed dead after Welcome to Raccoon City limped to $41.9 million in 2021. Resident Evil is playing in theaters now, and with no major horror competition left on the 2026 calendar, its run may not be finished climbing yet.
How interested are you in seeing Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil in theaters (or seeing it again)?
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If Zach Cregger directs another horror film next, what would you be most excited to see from him?