2025 was an awesome year for horror both critically and commercially, with movies like Sinners, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, and Weapons blazin
2025 was an awesome year for horror both critically and commercially, with movies like Sinners, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, and Weapons blazing a trail that eventually led to an unexpected slew of genre Oscar nominations. Somehow, though, 2026 has been even better. And now, after the outsized successes of Backrooms and Obsession earlier this year, Weapons mastermind Zach Cregger’s latest, the survival horror game inspired Resident Evil, has just delivered another massive horror win, debuting with an itchy and tasty franchise-best $108 million opening weekend at the box office.
A radical approach to video game adaptation, Cregger’s Resident Evil — which all but abandons the games’ canon, instead centring the survival horror series’ vibe and cinematically emulating the player experience — has not only landed the franchise’s best movie opening to date (it’s already grossed more than the OG 2002 Paul W.S. Anderson movie did in its entire run), but also Cregger’s biggest box office debut yet, too. What’s more, the Austin Abrams led zombie movie has actually breezed past Scream 7 to become the second biggest opening horror movie of 2026, sitting just behind Kane Parsons’ A24-backed Backrooms, with the trio between them proving that the appetite is there among fans for legacy sequels, IP adaptations, and original chills — which paints a very positive picture of the genre’s current health.
With Weapons‘ Aunt Gladys spin-off well on its way (albeit no longer with any direct writing involvement on Cregger’s part) and mysterious sci-fi horror The Flood on the filmmaker’s horizons in August 2028, it remains to be seen whether Resident Evil‘s success could lead to any further trips to Raccoon City for Zach Cregger in the future. But when any horror movie is a hit, you can almost guarantee there’ll be sequel — so watch this space! And remember: Complete. Global. Saturation.
