The movie's star weighed in.
Deadpool & Wolverine, the highly anticipated third installment in Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool series, is raking in tens of millions of dollars after a blockbuster opening weekend. It smashed box office records, baffling some who might've questioned if an R-rated threequel could bring in audiences across the country.
Last week, Deadpool & Wolverine set a record for the most money brought in by an R-rated movie in Thursday previews. By the end of the weekend, it had officially achieved the biggest opening weekend of any R-rated movie in history, not adjusted for inflation, with a grand total of $211 million at the domestic box office. That makes it the sixth-biggest opening weekend for any movie in North America ever.
Related: ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Smashes R-Rated Box Office Record
Ryan Reynolds, who donned the iconic red suit once again for the movie, weighed in on the movie's record-breaking success in a July 28 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Simply put, the Canadian actor believes Deadpool & Wolverine struck a balance that other movies haven't quite been able to do.
"Disney probably doesn’t want me to frame it this way, but I’ve always thought of Deadpool & Wolverine as the first four-quadrant, R-rated film," he said of the movie. "Yes, it’s rated R, but we set out to make a movie with enough laughs, action and heart to appeal to everyone, whether you’re a comic book movie fan or not."
In the film industry, a "four-quadrant movie" is one that attracts a wide swath of audience members from four major demographic groups: men under the age of 25, men over 25, women under 25, and women over 25. Deadpool & Wolverine, Reynolds believes, falls into this category of movie that's fun for the whole family from your younger brother to your grandma.
Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters now, so those impressive numbers will only continue to climb.
