Deadpool & Wolverine sets an R-rated record and is one of the ten biggest openers of all time.
The dust is settling at the weekend box office as the final numbers start coming in for Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine. In our box office estimates, we pegged the film coming in at $200 million, and now it looks like the movie just blew past that mark, with Comscore revealing the film grossed $205 million this weekend. That breaks several records, with it now the highest-opening R-rated movie of all time. The number two and three spots on the biggest R-rated openers of all time belong to Deadpool and its first sequel. The first movie made $132.4 million, and the sequel grossed $125.5 million over their opening weekends.
That opening also takes the film into the top 10 biggest openers of all time, with it slipping into 8th place now between two other MCU movies, The Avengers and Black Panther. That’s a pretty incredible result for an R-rated movie. Still, audiences absolutely love this foul-mouthed love letter to the classic Fox Marvel movies, earning a terrific A CinemaScore rating. With the Marvel panel reveals at Comic-Con further stoking fan appreciation, maybe superhero fatigue isn’t as irreversible as people think, presuming they make the right movies. This is similar to what we saw with Pixar, who just had their biggest hit ever with Inside Out 2. Make the right movie, and audiences will turn out in droves.
However, last week’s champ, Twisters, suffered a harder-than-expected fall at the box office, plummeting 57% to $35.3 million. While a fall under 60% is usually considered decent, with positive word of mouth, the hope was that this would have stronger legs. Universal probably made a big mistake dropping the well-received sequel so close to Deadpool & Wolverine, as they’re going for the same audience.
Even family outings seemed impacted by Deadpool, with Despicable Me 4 making $14.2 million for a $290 million total and Inside Out 2 adding another $8.3 million to its gargantuan $613 million domestic haul.
Neon’s horror breakout, Longlegs, has proven to have long legs indeed at the box office, with $6.7 this weekend, with a $58 million total. It should earn around $75-80 million when all is said and done, which is an incredible result for an indie horror film like this. A Quiet Place: Day One continued to do well, making just over $3 million for a $134 million total, proving people still dig this franchise. Bad Boys: Ride or Die made another $1.275 million this weekend, with the $191 million total not too far away from the $200 million mark (will Sony keep it in theatres until it passes the double century mark?). It’s now the second-highest-grossing film in that franchise, just behind Bad Boys For Life, which made $206 million.
The Bette Midler flick, The Fabulous Four, had a less than fabulous opening, only making just over a million dollars. It was a counter-programming move, but the $967 per screen average is poor. Fly Me to the Moon has also proven to be a disaster, making $750k for a total of under $20 million. Ouch. Finally, the Indian, Tamil-language movie Raayan hit tenth place a the box office, making $378k despite only being open on 120 screens.
How much money do you think Deadpool & Wolverine will make next weekend? Let us know in the comments!