Last week brought a record-breaking debut for Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot, which delivered the franchise’s biggest opening to date. Netflix also made major moves on the business front, ending its partnership with Skydance Animation while striking a new deal with SEGA.
Resident Evil Sets a New High Mark for its Franchise and Genre
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot broke a franchise record before it even reached its first full day in theaters. Thursday night previews brought in $8.8 million, the highest preview total in the history of the series.
The film carried that momentum into and through the weekend. It opened to $60 million domestically and $48.3 million internationally, bringing its global opening weekend total to $108.3 million.
By the end of its opening weekend, Cregger’s Resident Evil landed at number one at the domestic box office, well clear of every other new release. Daniel and the Fiery Furnace opened in seventh place with $3 million, Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke’s The Weight came in ninth at $2 million, and Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom took eleventh with $1 million.
Resident Evil is the seventh live-action film and the second attempt to reboot the franchise after Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. The earlier reboot made $42 million in total while the original film made $103 million. Cregger’s version surpassed the total box office earnings of both films in a single weekend.
However, before release, some fans of the games were displeased with Cregger’s new approach to the reboot. The director chose to leave out all recognisable characters from the source material and ignored the action-heavy direction present in previous installments. Although Cregger later admitted he was “naive” for making such a bold change, the film landed favorably with critics. It currently holds a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest-rated film ever adapted from a video game and the highest-rated horror film in 2026.
Netflix Signs New SEGA Deal, Closes Skydance Animation Partnership
Netflix revealed it agreed to a partnership with SEGA to bring several of its games to screens. The titles lined up for adaptation are Crazy Taxi, Stranger Than Heaven, and Sonic.
“The fandoms of these games deserve storytelling that honors what makes each title special, and we know Netflix shares that commitment. This is just the start of what these titles can become,” Shuji Utsumi, SEGA’s president and COO, said.
SEGA’s head producer, Toru Nakahara, offered a sense of what each adaptation might feel like. Sonic, he said, would be “cute yet cool.” Stranger Than Heaven would be “a badass action drama,” and Crazy Taxi would be “hilariously crazy.” He added that they have “amazing creative ideas lined up.”
The Crazy Taxi film is subtitled World Tour and is set for a 2027 release. The writers behind 2025’s Naked Gun are attached, alongside the producers of the Sonic the Hedgehog film series. The Sonic adaptation will be an animated series aimed at young children, currently in development with Nakahara and Carlos Stevens.
Nakahara is also overseeing the live-action version of Stranger Than Heaven. Netflix VP Brandon Riegg said the company hopes the adaptations will introduce these games to “new audiences.” On that same day, Netflix has confirmed it is parting ways with Skydance Animation, the studio it has distributed for since October 2023.
Due to the partnership, Netflix released Spellbound and Swapped. Upon release, Swapped broke streaming records, setting the highest single-week viewership ever recorded for an animated film on the platform. It also became the fastest animated title to reach 100 million views in Netflix history.
The two companies put out a joint statement confirming they “remain fully committed to the successful releases of Ray Gunn and the untitled Jack and the Beanstalk project on Netflix.” Ray Gunn is scheduled for December 18. The Jack and the Beanstalk film does not yet have a release date. Both will be released through Netflix as agreed. Any future Skydance Animation films will not.
Zack Snyder’s TIFF Film Gets Rough Reviews as He Reflects on His Career and Future
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) ran from September 10 and closed over the weekend. During its run, TIFF produced several celebrated entries. One of the most-discussed screenings of the festival was Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph.
The film, which Snyder said he has been working on for two decades, received negative reviews that spread online after the screening.
The director told Variety that the backlash was personally targeted at him, while those targeted at the film felt out of proportion to the crowd that had actually been in the room. “There were only 1,200 people in the theater, and there are thousands of comments,” he said. “There was one I was reading where it was a guy who clipped it and said, ‘I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure it was horrible.'”
The film currently holds a 21% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Snyder drew a comparison to the reception his breakout film 300 received at the Berlin Film Festival. According to him, just like The Last Photograph, the screening of 300 also brought accusations of fascism and negative reviews before finding a large audience.
Elsewhere during the week, Snyder reflected on his time directing DC films, saying his approach may have been a “mistake” and “less fun” than it should have been. While on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he revealed that he had written ten of the twelve episodes of a planned series based on Ayn Rand’s controversial novel The Fountainhead.
He also said the script has been rejected by two companies, and that Netflix had previously passed on it as well. The director shared that he plans on making a live-action Rick and Morty adaptation, and that he has begun work on a remake of Escape from New York with StudioCanal.
