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“Deadpool & Wolverine,” a comic book adventure featuring two of Marvel’s most popular characters, is soaring at the box office.
Disney’s superhero sequel earned $205 million in its opening weekend, surpassing 2018’s “Black Panther” ($202 million) and giving it the eighth-highest opening weekend of all time behind 2015’s “Jurassic World” ($208 million) and 2012’s “The Avengers” ($207 million). Only nine movies in Hollywood history have surpassed the $200 million milestone in their opening weekend. It also far surpassed 2016’s “Deadpool” ($132 million) in ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing R-rated opening weekend of all time. The 2018 sequel, “Deadpool 2,” grossed $125 million, making it the third-highest-grossing R-rated opening weekend of all time. Among other benchmarks for new releases, “Deadpool & Wolverine” had the biggest start of the year, beating another Disney film, Pixar sequel “Inside Out 2” ($155 million debut).
Internationally, Deadpool & Wolverine earned $233.3 million for a staggering $438 million worldwide. The film, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, is already the sixth highest-grossing film of 2024 three days after its release. Disney spent roughly $200 million to produce the movie and another $100 million to promote it.
Heading into the weekend, Deadpool 3 (the first in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature a comic book character licensed by 20th Century Fox) was expected to gross between $160 million and $170 million. But that expectation was quickly overturned as die-hard fans shied away from plot twists and major cameos, eager to be among the first to see Jackman’s gruff mutant Logan come out of retirement. Director Shawn Levy’s flagship film has soared to staggering heights at the box office: On Friday alone, Deadpool & Wolverine made $96 million, more than most movies’ opening weekends in 2024.
Deadpool & Wolverine is a much-needed win for Marvel. After its release this weekend, the MCU became the first movie franchise to top $30 billion worldwide. The comic book giant has churned out an unprecedented string of blockbusters over 15 years and 33 movies, but recent releases like Eternals, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania and The Marvels have all flopped at the box office. Part of the problem is that since the launch of its Disney+ streaming service, the studio has given audiences countless spinoffs, sequels and TV series on the big and small screens. In response, Disney CEO Bob Iger has said the MCU is looking to scale back on its production numbers. Last year’s strike and other delays have left Deadpool & Wolverine as Marvel Studios’ only film for 2024, the first since 2012’s The Avengers.
“The pandemic hasn’t slowed down the momentum of blockbuster superhero films,” said David A. Gross of film consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research, pointing to the big successes of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($1.91 billion), “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” ($956 million), “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” ($859 million) and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ($846 million). But Gross added that “lesser-known new films are struggling.” So it’s good to see some familiar names on the MCU’s upcoming cast list. Last weekend, the studio announced at Comic-Con that “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr. will return to play villain Victor Von Doom in 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday.”
This summer will also be a bounce-back year for Disney, long one of Hollywood’s leading studios but stumbling in 2023 after a string of blockbusters including “Indiana Jones and the Haunted Mansion” and “Wish” underperformed. So far in 2024, “Inside Out 2” has overtaken “Frozen 2” as the highest-grossing animated film of all time with $1.5 billion, while “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is closing in on $400 million worldwide. “Alien: Romulus” could bring another win to the Magic Kingdom in August.
Last weekend’s winner, “Twisters,” dropped to a distant second place as theaters devoted nearly all of their seats to “Deadpool & Wolverine.” The disaster blockbuster, starring Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos, grossed a still-solid $35.3 million, down 57% from its debut. To date, “Twisters” has grossed $154.9 million in North America and $221 million worldwide.
Elsewhere, continuing releases round out the box office rankings. Universal and Illumination’s “Despicable Me” took in $14.2 million in its fourth weekend, coming in at No. 3. The animated sequel has earned $290.9 million domestically and $677 million worldwide to date. “Inside Out 2,” the seventh film in the series, took in $8.3 million to come in at No. 4, bringing its domestic gross to $613.4 million.
Neon’s horror film “Long Legs” came in fifth with $6.7 million, boosting its North American gross to $58 million. It became Neon’s highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Oscar-winning film “Parasite,” which grossed $53.36 million in North America.