Deadpool Marvels

Box Office Trends 7/28

Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine became the highest-grossing R-rated film opening of all time, with $205 M domestic and $438.3 M worldwide. It had the 8th-highest opening weekend ever and the 8th-highest per-screen average of $48,694.

Here’s how it faired against the series top performers' opening weekends:

$205 M - Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

• $438.3 M worldwide opening

$132.4 M - Deadpool (2016)

• $363 M domestic total

• $782.6 M worldwide total

$125.5 M - Deadpool 2 (2018)

• $324.5 M domestic total

• $785.9 M worldwide

$88.4 M - Logan (2017)

• $226.3 M domestic total

• $619.1 M worldwide

It looks like combining the characters in a single movie translated very closely (4.3% differential) to their individual cumulative box office opening earnings. Logan’s (2017) $88.4 M + Deadpool 2’s (2018) $125.5 M = $213.9 M vs $205 M (Deadpool & Wolverine’s).

The movie smoked Marvel’s latest three opening releases in terms of box office and RT audience score:

$205 M - Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

• $438.3 M worldwide opening

• 97% RT

$46.1 M - The Marvels (2023)

• $110.3 M worldwide opening

• 82% RT

$118.4 million - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

• $289.3 M worldwide opening

• 94% RT

$106 M - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

• $250 M worldwide opening

• 82% RT

But we’re a far cry from the golden era of superhero movies in 2018 and 2019, which not only saw the highest domestic opening ever of Avengers: Endgame (2019) at $357.1 M but also had more superhero films releasing, an average of seven/year vs. five in 2024.

Silver lining: MCU has now made over $30 bn worldwide.  

Here’s the breakdown of the rest of the top 10:

$35.3 M - Twisters (Universal)

• $154.9 M domestic total

• $221.3 M worldwide

• Week 2

• Trailer

Twisters dropped 57%, one of the highest drops this weekend, with Deadpool & Wolverine knocking it off the podium. Twisters is still $86.7 M away from Twister's (1996) $241 M domestic total. The original Twister was the #2 biggest-grossing film in 1996 (behind Independence Day).