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    "headline": "Resident Evil loses 979 US theaters in five weeks as Zach Cregger’s reboot nears $150 million",
    "description": "The reboot took $5.5 million from 2,705 venues on October 16 to 18, but its $361 million worldwide total is already the best in the 24-year-old film series.",
    "datePublished": "2026-10-20T17:47:00+01:00",
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    "articleSection": "Entertainment",
    "keywords": "Box office, Horror movies, Resident Evil, Sony Pictures, Zach Cregger",
    "articleBody": "Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil was showing in 2,705 North American theaters over the weekend of October 16 to 18, which is 380 fewer than a week earlier and 979 fewer than the 3,684 it opened in on September 18. The reboot took $5.5 million across those three days, slipped to seventh place, and lifted its domestic total to $148.5 million. A shrinking footprint in week five is how a wide release normally ages, and the bigger picture is still the best result the 24-year-old film series has produced: $361.2 million worldwide against a reported production budget of $75 million, a figure that leaves out marketing. When the film opened, box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Rentrak summed up the appeal in six words: “Zach Cregger plus big franchise equals big bucks.” Where the 979 theaters went Sony kept the film on its full opening count for two weekends before cinemas began trimming it. The weekend tallies so far: Sept. 18–20: $60.2M, 3,684 theaters, No. 1 Sept. 25–27: $23.0M, 3,684 theaters, No. 2 Oct. 2–4: $12.6M, 3,259 theaters (−425), No. 2 Oct. 9–11: $8.6M, 3,085 theaters (−174), No. 3 Oct. 16–18: $5.5M, 2,705 theaters (−380), No. 7 Added up, the film has lost 26.6% of its widest release, or 979 of 3,684 venues. Earnings per location fell much faster than the location count. The average was $16,328 per theater on opening weekend and $2,033 last weekend, about one-eighth of where it started ($2,033 divided by $16,328 is 0.125). Why cinemas drop a hit The rental deal between studio and cinema explains much of the pressure. Theaters typically pass around 50 to 55% of ticket revenue back to the distributor as a rental fee, and the share usually begins above that range and shrinks as the weeks go by, which is meant to reward cinemas for keeping a title longer. Even so, the weekly stream of heavily promoted new releases means most movies leave first-run screens inside eight weeks. Disney has estimated that roughly 95% of a film’s tickets are sold in its first six weeks; Resident Evil finished its fifth weekend on Sunday, October 18. Leaving cinemas also starts the next stage of a film’s life. Under the release-window system that studios have used since the 1970s, a theatrical run is followed by home video and on-demand rental, then pay television, then free broadcast. Those gaps have narrowed sharply: in 2019 most big US chains still required 90 days before physical home video and rental, and after the pandemic Warner Bros. agreed a 45-day exclusive theatrical window with Regal’s parent company, Cineworld, starting in 2022. Front-loaded genre, longer legs Horror usually makes its money early and falls hard after opening weekend. Resident Evil did lose 61.7% in its second frame, yet its domestic total is now 2.47 times its opening ($148.5 million divided by $60.2 million). That fits Cregger’s track record of beating the genre’s usual curve: Barbarian grossed more than $46 million on a budget below $5 million, and Weapons made $270 million on a reported $38 million. The new film, in which Austin Abrams plays a medical courier trapped in the Raccoon City outbreak, has already passed the $314 million worldwide total of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter to become the top earner among the series’ eight live-action films. Abroad, staggered dates kept fresh money arriving after the US peak. Markets outside North America now account for 58.9% of the total; China opened on October 5 and has added $55.8 million, and Japan followed on October 9 with $4.0 million. Reviews helped too. According to the film’s encyclopedia entry, it is the highest-rated video game adaptation on both of the main review aggregators, ahead of Exit 8. Opening-weekend crowds skewed 66% male and 75% under 35, according to exit polling. For the wider history of how cinema runs give way to home viewing, the film distribution overview traces the windows from five years in the late 1960s to weeks today. The next marker is close. The film needs about $1.5 million more to pass $150 million domestically, and if its sixth weekend, October 23 to 25, slips by the same 35.8% as its fifth, it would add roughly $3.5 million and clear that line. Further reading Wikipedia: Resident Evil (2026 film) Wikipedia: Film distribution Image: Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
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