Superhero films might have some financial fuel left in the tank as the third Deadpool movie has broken box office records since its release on Friday.
Deadpool & Wolverine, the Walt Disney Company’s first R-rated film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, opened to $205 million in North America, making it both the first R-rated film to open to over $200 million and just the ninth movie to do so. Globally, the film opened to $438.3 million, $36.5 of which was made from IMAX ticket sales, an IMAX record for an R-rated film.
“This is kind of hard to process,” Ryan Reynolds, the lead actor of the film, wrote in an Instagram story. “But thank you to everyone who went to see the film this weekend.”
The film has received positive reactions from both critics and audiences, receiving a 79% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an A rating via audiences from CinemaScore.
Part of the film’s massive opening could be attributed to Hugh Jackman reprising his role as the character Wolverine, as Jackman first played the role in 2000’s X-Men and played the role most recently in 2017’s Logan. Jackman himself has given his thanks to audiences for supporting the film, posting a photo online that recreated an iconic meme from X-Men: The Animated Series.
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The first Deadpool movie, released in 2016, grossed $363 million in North America, putting it just behind 2004’s The Passion of the Christ as the highest-grossing R-rated film domestically. The latter movie is set to receive a sequel next year and will be titled The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection.
The massive opening for the third Deadpool movie comes about eight months after the previous MCU film, The Marvels, was a financial flop, grossing just $206 million globally. Disney ended up incurring a $237 million loss from the film, which was one of six Disney films to either underperform or outright flop at the box office last year.
