Resident Evil Film Series Breaks $1 Billion Mark
Resident Evil is back in the news again, with both a new game (getting excellent reviews) and a new movie (getting less-than-excellent ones). Sony Pictures, the studio that’s bankrolled the series since 2002, doesn’t seem to be worried about the critics. They’re pointing out that the film franchise has now crossed the $1 billion mark in global ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing (video game related) movie series in Movieland.
“Resident Evil is an event film internationally,” Sony Pictures executive Josh Greenstein gushed to Deadline. “It’s been five years since the last film, and the global fanbase has been eagerly anticipating its return. Screen Gems has created the highest-grossing video game-based franchise of all time. We look forward to a strong rollout.”
You might get the feeling this is just a strategy to deflect press away from the bad reviews, especially since it isn’t hard for a series that has SIX films under its belt to amass a large amount of cash if you lump it all together.
- Resident Evil — $102.4 million
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse — $129.4 million
- Resident Evil: Extinction — $147.7 million
- Resident Evil: Afterlife — $296.2 million
- Resident Evil: Retribution — $240.6 million
- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter — to be determined (both the numbers and the “Final Chapter” status)
Sony released this self-congratulatory Instagram video. Those of you who are sticklers for grammar may want to look away from the blatant misuse of an apostrophe here.
No matter how mediocre it is, The Final Chapter will probably still make money; it’s already cleared $35 million in Japan and is estimated to make another $14 million this weekend in America.