Resident Evil: Extinction Box Office: Milla Jovovich Action Franchise Losing Steam Domestically

Resident Evil: Extinction with Milla Jovovich: Domestic box office underperformer is an international hit.

Resident Evil: Extinction box office: Milla Jovovich horror actioner may have reached its popularity peak in the domestic market

Sept. 21–23 weekend box office: Fall has arrived and so has Screen Gems’ Resident Evil: Extinction, which debuted atop the North American (U.S. and Canada only) box office chart, scoring $23.7 million from 2,828 theaters as per final studio figures found at boxofficemojo.com.

Directed by Russell Mulcahy and starring Milla Jovovich, the third installment in the critically lambasted but internationally popular action sci-fi/horror series managed to outperform the opening weekend gross of its predecessors (not taking inflation into account): The original Resident Evil earned $17.7 million in 2002; Resident Evil: Apocalypse pulled in $23 million in 2004.

Sounds good?

Well, read the previous paragraph once again. Extinction grossed only around $700,000 more than Apocalypse. And that could mean the Resident Evil movie franchise is losing steam in the domestic market. Of course, we’ll only know for sure after the inevitable sequel pops up in the next couple of years or so.

Besides Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil: Extinction features Ali Larter, Oded Fehr, Iain Glen, Jason O’Mara, and Christopher Egan. Budget: According to online sources, $45 million (as always, not including marketing and distribution expenses); if accurate, that’s about as much as Apocalypse.

Mediocre domestic cume, but still popular abroad

Update: Milla Jovovich’s Resident Evil: Extinction ultimately collected a mediocre $50.6 million domestically and, as expected, a far better $97.1 million overseas. Worldwide total: A surely profitable $147.7 million.

Its top international markets were Japan ($24.6 million), Russia/CIS ($8.2 million), and Mexico ($7.4 million).

Not two for the books: Good Luck Chuck & The Brave One

Trailing Resident Evil: Extinction, Lionsgate’s Mark Helfrich-directed Good Luck Chuck debuted with $13.7 million from 2,612 sites. That’s an acceptable – well, barely – opening-weekend performance when one considers that the romantic comedy comes accompanied by an R rating and negative reviews. Dane Cook and Jessica Alba star.

Last weekend’s top movie, Neil Jordan’s The Brave One, slipped to no. 3, bringing in $7.3 million (down 46 percent) from 2,755 venues. Starring two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Jodie Foster (The Accused, 1988; The Silence of the Lambs, 1991), the revenge thriller has lifted its cumulative gross to a mere $25 million after ten days.

Also in the cast: Oscar nominee Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow, 2005), Naveen Andrews, Nicky Katt, Zoë Kravitz, and veteran Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen (Melvin and Howard, 1980).

“Resident Evil: Extinction Box Office: Milla Jovovich” endnotes

Unless otherwise noted, “Resident Evil: Extinction Box Office: Milla Jovovich Action Franchise Losing Steam Domestically” box office information via Box Office Mojo. Budget info – which should be taken with a grain of salt – via BOM and/or other sources (e.g., the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Screen Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline.com, etc.).

Comments about Resident Evil: Extinction, Good Luck Chuck, The Brave One, and other titles being hits/profitable or flops/money-losers at the box office (see paragraph below) are based on the available data about their production budget, additional marketing and distribution expenses (as a general rule of thumb, around 50 percent of the production cost), and worldwide gross (as a general rule of thumb when it comes to the Hollywood studios, around 50–55 percent of the domestic gross and 40 percent of the international gross goes to the distributing/producing companies).

Bear in mind that data regarding rebates, domestic/international sales/pre-sales, and other credits and/or contractual details that help to alleviate/split production costs and apportion revenues are oftentimes unavailable, and that reported international grosses may be incomplete (i.e., not every territory is fully – or even partially – accounted for).

Also bear in mind that ancillary revenues (domestic/global television rights, home video sales, streaming, merchandising, etc.) can represent anywhere between 40–70 percent of a movie’s total take. However, these revenues and their apportionment are only infrequently made public.

Milla Jovovich Resident Evil: Extinction movie image: Screen Gems.

“Resident Evil: Extinction Box Office: Milla Jovovich Action Franchise Losing Steam Domestically” last updated in October 2022.