Critics Are Calling This Resident Evil the Best Video Game Movie in Years
After a $60M / $108M open, reviews landed: horror, jokes, and gore in the right ratio. You do not need to have played the games. Cregger's next is an original. The franchise finally has a template.
The money already arrived. The reviews are why people who skipped every Milla Jovovich sequel are buying tickets anyway.
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil opened to $60 million domestic and $108 million worldwide - franchise record - and the write-ups that followed are unusually kind for a game adaptation. The consensus in plain English: horror, humor, and ridiculous gore in the right amounts. You do not need a map of Raccoon City in your head. The 2021 reboot died at $42 million global. This one feels like a different species.
Why it is sticking
Cregger already did this trick with Barbarian and Weapons (that one rode word-of-mouth to about $270 million worldwide). Studios finally hired someone who likes the source instead of apologizing for it. He has already said the next film is an original sci-fi, The Flood, so this might be a one-off. That only makes the theater window feel shorter.
The magazine read
Record opening. Reviews that do not sound embarrassed. A game movie people recommend to friends who do not game. That is the whole trick.