Movie Monday: To Competitors, ‘Resident Evil’ Looks Scary in Win

movie monday

So far, the year’s box-office returns have been horrific.

Oh, the returns themselves have been strong: As noted a couple of weeks ago, the box office had its most lucrative summer on record, and Hollywood has been on a tear. But a big reason for that turnaround has been the surprising success of horror movies.

Resident Evil joins the cast of chilling overachievers. The much-lauded reboot directed by Zach Cregger (the same guy behind the Oscar-nominated horror flick Weapons) earned an estimated $60 million in North America, surpassing expectations and setting a new bar for the franchise itself. (The highest debut for a Resident Evil movie previously was $26.6 million, set by 2010’s Resident Evil: Afterlife.)

Resident Evil scared up $48.3 million overseas as well, pushing its global gross to a terrifying $108.3 million.

A bevy of holdovers fill out the remainder of the top five.

Last week’s champ, Practical Magic 2, conjured up another $12.2 million to take second place. The film has now earned about $50 million stateside and $76.8 million worldwide.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day—the brand-new owner of the top spot on the box office’s all-time list—padded its webby bank accounts with an additional $6.5 million. Spidey and company have now earned $944.5 million, which pushes it past Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens ($936.7 million) on the all-time list. Its worldwide tally now stands at just under $2.5 billion.

Brand New Day and The Odyssey have been practically joined at Tom Holland’s armored hip in the box-office standings since both were released, and that remains the case. The Odyssey finished fourth with $4.9 million. Over its 10-week-and-counting run, The Odyssey has banked $609.8 million in North America and $1.7 billion worldwide. That should be enough to patch up that poor cyclops’ eye, methinks. Or at least buy the guy a nice, sophisticated monocle.

Coyote vs. Acme continues to display some serious staying power, banking $4.5 million to push its domestic gross to $54.8 million and $79.8 million globally. It locked down fifth place.

A new Christian film, Daniel and the Fiery Furnace, comported itself pretty well this weekend, finishing seventh with $3.1 million. The same cannot be said for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom. Despite an impressive 98% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Mossy Bottom hit rock bottom, fleecing just $1.9 million from domestic moviegoers to finish 11th.

Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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