Marvel Defeats DC With Billion-Dollar R-Rated #1 Spot
Deadpool & Wolverine has officially become the highest-earning R-rated movie in history, appropriately unseating DC’s Joker. The second-ever movie with its rating to pass the billion dollar mark, it surpassed its DC competition and blew previous entries in its own franchise away in the process. With lots of quipping, violence, and fourth wall breaking, it found historic success at a time when movies are struggling at the box office and superhero movies seem to be falling out of favor.
Deadpool Decapitates Joker
In just under a month in theaters Deadpool & Wolverine has reached $1.086 billion at the box office. This surpassed the earnings of 2019’s Joker, which came in at 1.078 billion becoming the first R-rated movie to surpass the billion-dollar mark.
Marvel has now taken that crown from DC in another box office victory for the Disney mega-franchise.
Making its debut on July 26th, Deadpool & Wolverine kicked off its box office success with one of the best opening weekends in film history at $211 million.
Its success continued domestically bringing in another $516 million in North America. It was also a smash hit internationally, earning $568 million outside North America.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Connecting the Deadpool franchise to the MCU, Deadpool & Wolverine is a multiverse-spanning adventure about Wade Wilson’s attempt to save his universe from being erased. To accomplish that goal he teams up with Wolverine and the two battle their way through The Void, a limbo where characters from erased universes live.
The movie brought beloved actors Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman together, serving as a kind of superhero buddy-cop movie.
A Slow Movie Year
Joker isn’t the only superhero movie that Deadpool & Wolverine notably outdid, it surpassed the first two entries in its own series as well. Deadpool and Deadpool 2 were both major financial successes, earning $783 million and $786 million respectively, but the third entry blew past both in just two weeks.
Even more impressive is the fact Deadpool & Wolverine found so much success in a year when movies have struggled in theaters. It’s only the second movie to pass the billion-dollar threshold this year, with the other being Pixar’s Inside Out 2.
While it’s still a ways behind Inside Out 2’s whopping $1.558 billion, the R-rated superhero movie is guaranteed to be one of the year’s most successful movies.
Superhero Fatigue
Deadpool & Wolverine also overcame the obstacle of superhero fatigue. The term has become synonymous with recent MCU flops like The Marvels and The Eternals. Deadpool’s introduction to the MCU, and its financial success, is being hailed by some as the salvation of the franchise, while others consider it a one-off exception to the rule.
Superheroes Still On Top
Regardless of the genre’s future, Deadpool & Wolverine has proven that superhero movies are still the dominant genre in movies for adults. It’s not just one of the biggest movies of the moment, it’s a record-breaking, historically popular movie. With a Joker sequel coming later this year DC has a shot to take the R-rate crown back, but it has its work cut out for it.
Source: Variety
