FRIDAY PM UPDATE: Zach Cregger‘s Resident Evil is bound for the best opening this franchise has ever seen in its 24 years of feature existence; this weekend armed up with at least $50M, and a chance for more. It’s also the best domestic start ever for Cregger as a filmmaker, unloading Weapons ($43.5M). Today plus previews is looking like $24M.

Note the weekend opening alone is more than several Resident Evil‘s have made at the domestic box office, including the first movie ($40.1M), 2012’s Retribution ($42.3M), 2016’s Final Chapter ($28.1M), 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City ($17M) and possibly 2004’s Apocalypse ($50.1M) and 2007’s Extinction ($50.6M). Walk-up last night was solid at 52% (meaning share of people who bought tickets same day).

Last night’s PostTrak from Screen Engine and Rentrak showed a fantastic 70% definite recommend with men over 25 (biggest quad at 45%) giving it a 75% definite recommend. Men under 25 were next at 24%, then women over 25 at 21% (a good sign, 28% came with a spouse/partner or g.f. or b.f.), with women under 25 at 10%. Diversity demos were 41% Caucasian, 28% Latino and Hispanic, 13% Black and 11% Asian American and 7% Native American/other.

It will be interesting to see where the CinemaScore lands tonight as the highest grade ever achieved by a Resident Evil movie was a B, and that happened three times: the original film, Apocalypse and Final Chapter.

Overall, word of mouth is positive on social per RelishMix: “The crowd has been waiting to nerd out over crank puzzles again. Fans are treating this like a survival-horror fantasy draft, wish-listing item boxes, ink ribbons and hexagonal cranks with the specificity of people who’ve replayed these games until their thumbs cramped. There’s trust building around Zach Cregger, with commenters citing his horror pedigree as a reason for cautious-to-full-blown optimism, and plenty of side-by-side comparisons to Silent Hill framing this as finally getting the vibe right instead of just cosplaying the games.”

UPDATED, 7:37 AM: Sony/Constantin’s Resident Evil came in with $8.8M previews Thursday night. Pretty damn good. PostTrak is 4.5 out of 5 stars. The Zach Cregger-directed movie played at 3,166 theaters.

Again, don’t think that we were in a funk last weekend with Practical Magic 2 coming in at the lower end of its forecast with $30M. The movie was supposed to attract moms and daughters and only wound up pulling in moms. We’re in a better space heading into the weekend.

1. Practical Magic 2 (WB) 4,146 theaters, Wk $37.8M/Wk 1

2. The Odyssey (Uni) 1,983 theaters, Wk $11.7M (-45%), Total $604.8M/Wk 9

3. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony) 3,303 theaters, Wk $11.2M (-59%), Total $938M/Wk 7

5. Coyote vs. Acme (Ketchup) 3,355 theaters, Wk $8.7M (-54%)/, Total $50.3M/ Wk 3

PREVIOUS EXCLUSIVE: Buckle up your 4DX seat because it’s gonna be a fun weekend, as out of the gate, Zach Cregger’s take on Resident Evil already is posting the best previews ever for the franchise with tonight north of $8M and maybe even north of $9M.

The outlook going into the weekend was $40M-$50M. Those who are smart, inside the industry and study ticket sales believe the movie has a shot to go over $50M.

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Similar to how this Resident Evil is posting the series’ best critical score on Rotten Tomatoes (now at 96% certified fresh), it is posting the best audience score as well, at 91%. On Rotten Tomatoes, the previous best audience score belonged to the original 2002 film at 67%.

Previews for the R-rated Sony/Constantin feature adaptation of the Capcom video game began at 2 p.m. stateside.

Tonight’s estimated take easily decimates the franchise’s previous high (which wasn’t much), 2016’s Resident Evil: Final Chapter at $1M. That was the first time a Resident Evil movie posted seven digits in its previews.

But get a load of this: Resident Evil‘s previews even on the low end of $8M scorch Cregger’s Weapons ($5.75M previews, $43.5M opening), Scream 7 (yes, $7.8M, $63.6M opening, but put a pin in that one), Mortal Kombat 2 ($5.2M, $38.5M, a Midway video game adapted into an R-rated franchise), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 ($6.5M, $60.1M; yes, we know that’s a family film, but it’s based on a video game. Calm down).

Here’s the thing, the Friday/preview-to-Saturday holds for some previous Resident Evil movies are pretty good with 2017’s The Final Chapter +1.4% between those two days, the original 2002 movie +1% and 2010’s Resident Evil: Afterlife -9%, that pic holding the series previous domestic opening record at $26.6M). The point is, because it’s horror and because it’s a different iteration of Resident Evil from the previous Milla Jovovich films, the wait-and-see is just how front-loaded this movie is. Scream 7 was a completely different animal with the return of Neve Campbell to the franchise, and tracking sources tonight advise not to comp Resident Evil to that horror pic (at least not yet). It was Cregger’s vision here to make a more authentic adaptation of the games that he has avidly played.

The net $75M Constantin/Sony production of Resident Evil is playing in PLFs and Imax, with the latter format’s 70MM still on a crusade with The Odyssey (about 35 auditoriums).

Tonight’s figures come from distribution sources, not the studio, so take everything with a grain of salt.

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Big difference between RESIDENT EVIL and SCREAM 7 is, RE is a good movie that fully satisfies its audience (at least based on the crowd I saw it with, who applauded twice during the movie and again at the end). Unlike S7, RE isn’t going to make half its money in the first weekend.

It’s well directed, but it’s a generic monster film with a pretty awful ending and a middling script. People are digging it, but let’s not pretend it’s a perfect film.

Is it the best RE film yet? Yeah, but it’s not really an RE film, is it? It does capture the spirit and tone of the games much better than the Milla Jovovich series does, but I feel like this new movie would have worked better as its own, original concept. This really seems like an original idea that was just slapped with the RE property, and that’s a shame. This happens time and time again…why bother using a property for an adaptation if you’re really not fully using it? I get it, name recognition blah blah. This hampers both original concepts from flourishing into new franchises (“IP” the term people love to flaunt) and hampers proper adaptations of books, comics, video games, etc.

I really did the enjoy the film, but was disappointed on two fronts: 1) the lack of actual meaningful RE connections and 2) the humor. It just did not work for me, and I am shocked to have read that Cregger even cut lots of material because test audiences thought it was too funny..!

The film perfectly captures the experience of playing Resident Evil. It’s not attempting to recreate the game’s convoluted story beats. The film is successful in its aims.

Honestly the best resident evil film yet. Definitely recommend.

It’s going over 50. Weapons which didn’t have the franchise branding and probably half the marketing budget made 43.

This plays so well with an audience. See it in a theater if you can