Deadpool & Wolverine from Walt Disney Co. grossed $205 million in ticket sales in the United States and Canada this weekendthe biggest domestic debut this year.
The film also achieved the best opening in history for an R-rated filmwith more than double the ticket sales of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s Joker during its opening weekend. Joker became the highest-grossing R-rated film in history with more than $1 billion at the box office after its 2019 release.
Boxoffice Pro had predicted that ticket sales for the Deadpool and Wolverine premiere would reach between US$180 and US$200 million over the weekend.
Deadpool & Wolverine, which stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as the foul-mouthed superhero and X-Men mutant, is the third installment in the Deadpool series. Disney acquired the film and television rights to the characters following its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019 and considers them one of the most significant intellectual properties to come with the deal, along with Avatar .
“It’s tremendous, but it’s not surprising: they did a great job of marketing, creating so much anticipation for the product and the feeling that you have to go out and see it now.“said Mike Bowers, chief executive of the Harkins theater chain and vice president of the National Association of Theatre Owners.
Bowers said that Its duration of approximately two hours allowed for more screeningsand the momentum of other successful films in recent months, such as the horror hit Longlegs and Inside Out 2 from Disney subsidiary Pixarhelped bring audiences back to theaters.
The success of Deadpool and Wolverine energizes the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a slate of 34 interconnected films that Together they form the most successful film franchise in Hollywood history with more than US$30 billion at the box office..
After overloading audiences with a sheer volume of films, the superhero genre at large has underperformed in recent years with releases like Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, as well as DC’s The Flash and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, all failing to recoup their production budgets.Your little cinematic universe is about to change forever“!” says Reynolds’ character in the film.
Deadpool & Wolverine accelerates the recovery of Disney’s film division, which has not made a profit since April 2022. Worldwide, the film sold tickets worth US$438 million.
Prior to this, the biggest opening weekend of the year in the US and Canada was Inside Out 2which has grossed $1.46 billion at the box office since its release in June.
The results are also good news for movie theater chains such as AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Cineworld Group, owner of Regal, which have been struggling with lower ticket sales amid a slowdown in movie releases.
