The Merc with the Mouth is back on the big screen and he’s a marvel.
Directed by Shawn Levy in close collaboration with franchise mastermind and star Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool & Wolverine opened to a record-shattering $205 million at the domestic box office to land the eighth biggest opening of all time among any film and by far the biggest launch for an R-rated film, not adjusted for inflation. The first Deadpool was the previous record-holder at $133.7 million.
It also shattered records on a global scale, opening to $233.3 million internationally for a worldwide start of $438.3 million.
Heading into the weekend, the threequel — which returns Reynolds as Wade Wilson/Deadpool and brings Jackman into the franchise as Logan/Wolverine — was expected to open to $160 million to $175 million, which were already huge numbers for a movie with the restricted rating.
Among additional records domestically, the film is the top opening ever for Reynolds, Levy and Jackman and the fifth-biggest superhero launch. It’s also the biggest July opening of all time, the biggest opening of 2024 so far and the biggest launch since Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021.
Globally, it’s the biggest opening since Avatar: The Way of the Water.
Deadpool & Wolverine is the first R-rated movie released by Disney and puts Kevin Feige’s Disney-owned Marvel on the road to recovery after a rough patch. The movie’s performance was fueled by strong reviews, stellar exits and a 97 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the second-best score ever for a Marvel film behind Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The first Deadpool made history when opening to $133.7 million domestically in February 2016, proving that a superhero pic could draw big crowds despite the restrictive rating. A little more than two years later, Deadpool 2 debuted to $125.5 million.
Feige’s Marvel took over the Deadpool franchise when Marvel’s parent company Disney swallowed up 20th Century Fox, which had rights to the X-Men universe of characters.
Deadpool 3 wasn’t the only headline for Disney’s film empire. Pixar’s Inside Out 2 — already the biggest animated film of all time globally — passed up fellow Pixar title Incredibles 2 in North America to become the biggest animated film of all time domestically with a cume of $613.4 million. Its worldwide tally is now $1.5 billion.
While the Marvel movie is sucking up most of the air at the box office, Twisters seems to be holding its own in its second outing. The Universal film fell 57 percent — the decline could have been far worse — to $36 million for a 10-day domestic total of $155.6 million. It placed No. 2.
The hit horror pic Longlegs also made box office history in becoming Neon’s biggest film with $58.6 million in domestic ticket sales. The crown previously belonged to the Oscar-winning Parasite.
More to come.
