Disney/Marvel Studios’ “Deadpool & Wolverine’ is now the ninth film in box office history — and the first with an R rating — to join the $200 million-plus opening weekend club with a $205 million launch from 4,210 locations.
It’s the largest opening weekend the box office has seen since the last film to join that club, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” opened to $260 million in December 2021. Four other Marvel Cinematic Universe films are also in that club — “The Avengers,” “Black Panther,” “Avengers: Infinity War,” and “Avengers: Endgame” — along with the “Star Wars” films “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” as well as “Jurassic World.”
“Deadpool & Wolverine” now also stands as the highest ever opening weekend in July, passing the $191 million opening of the 2019 “Lion King” remake. Disney is now responsible for 16 of the top 20 highest opening weekends in industry history.
Globally, the film has done just as well, opening at No. 1 in all markets and earning $233.5 million overseas for a global start of $438.5 million, the highest for any film since “Avatar: The Way of Water” in December 2022.
That is enough to put Marvel’s lifetime franchise grosses past the unprecedented $30 billion mark, and all but guarantees that “Deadpool & Wolverine” will join “Joker” as the second R-rated film to gross $1 billion worldwide.
Since it started blasting past all presale records for R-rated films, “Deadpool & Wolverine” has been pegged (Deadpool would probably like that choice of words) as one of the critical tentpoles of the summer season. Its move from May to July, combined with the underperformance of “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa,” left the usually robust May box office falling to its lowest numbers in a quarter century.
But now, combined with strong holdover returns from Universal’s “Twisters” and others, Marvel’s latest film has propelled overall domestic weekend grosses to an estimated $280 million, the highest seen by theaters since the $310 million posted on the historic opening weekend of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” one year ago.
“Twisters,” despite the loss of Imax screens and the global attention channeled towards “Deadpool,” is holding on respectably with $36 million in its second weekend, representing a 57% drop from its $82 million opening. With just $11.1 million overseas, “Twisters” is clearly a film that is resonating more with American moviegoers than the rest of the world as it stands at $155 million in domestic grosses and $221.3 million worldwide.
Universal/Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4” is in third with $14.2 million, continuing its strong box office run with $290.9 million domestic and $677.6 million worldwide.
Disney/Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” is in fourth with $8.3 million in its seventh weekend, crossing two huge milestones as it has now passed “Incredibles 2” to become the highest domestic grossing animated film of all time with $613 million in addition to passing $1.5 billion in global grosses.
Completing the top 5 is Neon’s “Longlegs,” which passed a milestone of its own as it has surpassed Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” as the indie distributor’s highest grossing film. Earning $6.7 million in its third weekend, the film now has a total of $58.6 million.
More to come…
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