Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil has opened at No.1 in the UK and Ireland with £4.2 million, giving the long-running horror franchise its biggest opening weekend to date. The film launched across 608 locations and more than doubled the previous franchise record of £1.7 million, set by Resident Evil: Afterlife in 2010. Its £4.2 million opening also puts the new film within £600,000 of Afterlife’s entire £4.8 million UK and Ireland run, which currently remains the highest total for any Resident Evil film.
Resident Evil Beats Zach Cregger’s Weapons Opening
The new Resident Evil also opened comfortably ahead of Cregger’s previous film Weapons, which started with £2.6 million in the UK and Ireland before going on to make £11.9 million.
It has already overtaken the total UK and Ireland grosses of the other six live-action Resident Evil films, including the original 2002 movie, which finished with £2.8 million. With such a strong first weekend, the reboot has quickly established itself as the franchise’s biggest UK launch by a considerable distance.
Elsewhere at the box office, Practical Magic 2 added another £1.5 million in its second weekend, taking its total to £5.6 million and already passing the £3.3 million lifetime total of the original film. Pressure followed with £1.1 million, while Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom debuted with just over £1 million and has reached £1.5 million including previews.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey also remains in the top five after 10 weekends, adding £587,000 and taking its UK and Ireland total to £85.8 million.
For CultureCues, this is a huge start for Resident Evil, especially when the franchise’s previous opening record stood for 16 years. More than doubling that figure in one weekend is impressive, and beating the opening of Weapons gives Zach Cregger another strong horror result. The real test will be how well it holds over the next few weeks, but for its opening weekend at least, Resident Evil has come back to life in a very big way.
Resident Evil is in cinemas now.
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