With Halloween falling over the most recent weekend, it’s only fitting that the horror genre has notched two more milestones. The first goes to Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil big-screen adaptation, now sitting at US$400 million in global ticket sales after surpassing 2025’s Weapons to become the filmmaker’s highest-grossing title to date.
The feature is also the top earner among the film instalments, surpassing 2016’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (US$312 million) that starred Milla Jovovich as Alice, a covert operative who battles the Umbrella Corporation, whose bioweapons have triggered a zombie apocalypse. It marked her final turn in the series, which later included 2021’s critically panned Welcome to Raccoon City reboot and Cregger’s latest effort, totalling eight entries.
In the latter, Austin Abrams plays a medical courier who fights through a viral outbreak of infested monsters in Raccoon City. The new take on the material opened in September to a series-best US$108 million worldwide, and will generate a tidy profit for Sony. Weapons, in comparison, earned US$270 million globally, while his solo directorial debut, Barbarian, racked up US$46 million against an estimated US$5 million budget.
Extending the horror winning streak is Clayface, scoring a worldwide cume of US$83 million in its sophomore frame. Marking a strong showing for DC Studios’ first R-rated horror film, it follows rising actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) as he seeks help from a scientist (Naomi Ackie) to restore his appearance, but the procedure transforms him into a shapeshifting creature. James Watkins directed the feature from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, with DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran among the producers.
While the body horror movie ranked No.1 globally, it was outpaced by You Can See Everything at the domestic box office. Helmed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the metadocumentary centres on Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the defunct health technology company Theranos, and her partner Billy Evans, who invited a film crew to document them beginning in the weeks before Holmes began serving a United States federal prison sentence for defrauding investors. Wildwood, Laika’s stop-motion animated dark fantasy, is in third place, with Wicker and Street Fighter rounding out the top five.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Kevin Low
Natalie
