NEW YORK (AP) — In a box office showdown between Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, both husband and wife emerged victorious.
Reynolds’ Marvel Studios blockbuster “Deadpool and Wolverine” The film made $54.2 million in ticket sales, making it the top-grossing movie in North American theaters for the third straight week, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Worldwide, it has now topped $1 billion. “It ends with us.” The romantic drama starring Lively exceeded expectations by grossing $50 million at the box office.
‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and ‘It Ends With Us’ Top the Box Office
These movies are family-friendly “Barbenheimer” It’s a story about two very different movies becoming huge hits thanks to competing programming, except this time, the polar opposites starred one of Hollywood’s most famous couples. This one-two punch of two movies isn’t entirely unprecedented: In 1990, Bruce Willis’ “Die Hard 2” topped the box office, and Demi Moore’s “Ghost” came in second.
There were also some expensive flops over the weekend. Borderlands The long-delayed $120 million video game adaptation, directed by Eli Roth, was released with just $8.8 million from Lionsgate. Starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Jack Black, the film was only shot in 2021. After delays and reshoots, it finally hit theaters, but it essentially sold out soon after its release. With a fresh score of just 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s shaping up to be one of the worst movies of the year.
Meanwhile, Deadpool & Wolverine, starring Hugh Jackman, continues to break box office records. The Shawn Levy-directed film is just the second R-rated movie to gross more than $1 billion. 2019’s “Joker.” Three weeks after its release, it’s already one of Marvel’s most profitable films, behind only Disney’s other 2024 blockbuster, Inside Out ($1.6 billion worldwide) among films released this year.
Lively has a cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine, but she also stars in and produces It Ends With Us. In this film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling romance novel, Lively plays Lily Bloom, a Boston florist who is torn between two men: the love of her life (Justin Baldoni, who also directs the film) and her first love (Brandon Sklener).
“It Ends With Us” was made on a modest budget of $25 million, which should allow co-financiers Columbia Pictures and Wayfarer Studios to make a big profit. Like Sony’s summer release of “Where the Crawdad’s Thing,” a women’s novel adaptation, “It Ends With Us” could hold its own in the typically slow box office month of August. Audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore.
Reynolds and Lively have at times emphasized the intersection of their films. Earlier this week, Reynolds posted a video of himself asking Sklener questions about the trip. The timing worked out particularly well for Lively, whose film grossed double its opening weekend box office projections.
Neon “Cuckoo” Set in the German Alps, this horror film from director Tilman Singer grossed $3 million on 1,503 screens and stars Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens.
These are estimates of ticket sales in U.S. and Canadian cinemas from Friday through Sunday, according to ComScore. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.
1. Deadpool & Wolverine, $54.2 million.
2. It Ends with Us, $50 million
3. “Twisters,” $15 million
4. Borderlands, $8.8 million
5. Despicable Me, $8 million
6. “Trapped,” $6.7 million
7. Inside Out 2, $5 million
8. Harold and the Purple Crayon, $3.1 million
9. “Cuckoo,” $3 million
10. Long Legs, $2 million
