@oldhollywoodcapRESIDENT EVIL's newest chapter has now passed $196 million worldwide, and the reported production budget was $75 million. That gap is the headline, but the story underneath it is stranger and better. Look at where the series had been. The 2002 original closed its global run at roughly $104 million. WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY, in 2021, could only muster about $42 million. The franchise's high-water mark still belongs to THE FINAL CHAPTER from 2017, at roughly $314 million. So a $196 million haul is not the biggest number this series has ever seen. It is something else: a recovery. The opening numbers tell the same story. Cregger's film pulled $60 million domestically in its debut, the largest opening the franchise has ever had. It came within a hair of AFTERLIFE's entire domestic run of $60.1 million in a single weekend. Add in the rest of the world and that opening frame reached $108.3 million globally. Then there is the part that nobody saw coming. On Rotten Tomatoes the film sits at 95%. No live-action entry before it had ever cleared 40%. That is not an improvement, it is a different category of movie. WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY looked like the end of the road. Instead Zach Cregger has handed RESIDENT EVIL a second life.

@oldhollywoodcapRESIDENT EVIL's newest chapter has now passed $196 million worldwide, and the reported production budget was $75 million. That gap is the headline, but the story underneath it is stranger and better. Look at where the series had been. The 2002 original closed its global run at roughly $104 million. WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY, in 2021, could only muster about $42 million. The franchise's high-water mark still belongs to THE FINAL CHAPTER from 2017, at roughly $314 million. So a $196 million haul is not the biggest number this series has ever seen. It is something else: a recovery. The opening numbers tell the same story. Cregger's film pulled $60 million domestically in its debut, the largest opening the franchise has ever had. It came within a hair of AFTERLIFE's entire domestic run of $60.1 million in a single weekend. Add in the rest of the world and that opening frame reached $108.3 million globally. Then there is the part that nobody saw coming. On Rotten Tomatoes the film sits at 95%. No live-action entry before it had ever cleared 40%. That is not an improvement, it is a different category of movie. WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY looked like the end of the road. Instead Zach Cregger has handed RESIDENT EVIL a second life.