Deadpool and Wolverine, aka, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, have received their membership cards to the billion-dollar box office club.
Marvel Studios and Disney’s summer blockbuster achieved the feat on Saturday, and will finish the weekend with an estimated $1.029 billion in global ticket sales, including $494.3 million domestically and $535.2 million overseas. It’s only the second R-rated title in history to reach this milestone.
Directed by Shawn Levy, the audacious third outing in the Deadpool series is a huge win for franchise mastermind Ryan Reynolds, as well as for Marvel Studios and the superhero genre in general. It’s the first superhero movie to cross $1 billion since Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home two and a half years ago, and the first Marvel/Disney MCU pic cross the $1 billion threshold since Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
Moreover, the third installment in the audacious superhero series is just day days away from passing up Warner Bros. and Todd Phillips’ Joker ($1.079 billion) to become the top-grossing R-rated film of all time at the global box office. Deadpool & Wolverine now ranks No. 2 after passing up Oppenheimer. In North America, it already holds the R-rated record.
Deadpool & Wolverine is the 55th movie to clear the $1 billion mark; the 31st Disney title to do so (that includes three 20th Century Fox films inherited in the merger); and the 11th MCU movie, including two Sony Spider-Man films.
Other notable factoids: it’s the second film of the year so far to join the billion-dollar club after sister Disney/Pixar film Inside Out 2, which now tops the chart of the top-grossing animated film of all time with nearly $1.6 billion in global ticket sales. Disney is the only studio to ever deliver back-to-back $1 billion films in a given year.
Deadpool & Wolverine has smashed one record after another since debuting over the July 26-28 weekend, including quickly passing up the entire lifetime runs of the first two Deadpool films, both domestically and globally, after just two weekends in theaters. Deadpool‘s domestic earnings were $363.1 million for a global total of $782.6 worldwide; the second film’s domestic haul was $318.5 million for a worldwide total of $734.5 million.
More to come.
