Marvel’s instant summer blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine from director Shawn Levy (who cowrote with Ryan Reynolds) is shattering box office records and expectations this weekend as it eyes a possible $400 million global opening. It looks destined to be the biggest R-rated opening in history.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JULY 22: (L-R) Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman attend the Deadpool & Wolverine … [+]
Deadpool & Wolverine took $65 million in international markets heading into the weekend, and stateside the MCU superhero sequel sat atop an estimated $55 million for Friday, including Thursday early screenings. If we include China’s opening numbers as well, then we’re talking about nearly $130 million, and that’s without international figures from Friday aside from China. We’ll know more when we get numbers this morning.
You can safely bet the international Friday ticket sales blew past the domestic figures, and could send the film toward $200 million or more through end of Friday, with two more days of weekend business ahead.
Word of mouth is spectacular, with glowing critical (including my own) and audience reception for the long awaited team-up — not only of the titular Deadpool and Wolverine, but of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, who worked together as these two characters in the essentially “wiped from existence” X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and have been circling one another for a team-up ever since.
I’m excited by the prospect of a new MCU-based X-Men and look forward to a fresh approach, but I must say it will be a shame if we don’t get to see more of this dream team, because these two alone could seriously be among the key anchors for a whole phase of MCU films.
Imagine a Deadpool & Wolverine vs Marvel Zombies type movie, the pair hired by the TVA to cull timelines infected by the plague (but of course winding up choosing to help fight to save a timeline from the invading zombie army of familiar undead versions of Marvel heroes and villains.). Or Deadpool & Wolverine Go To Hell, with the dynamic dueling duo facing Mephisto and traveling through a dreamscape (including of course Deadpool’s own insane subconscious, and maybe Wolverine’s surprising interest in MEC men’s fashion shopping).
It’s a money-printing franchise precisely because the ideas are always just an excuse to put the two together in different situations and see how they react, how they drive one another crazy in new interesting ways, and how they’ve evolved as friends and teammates who work together to save the day.
Reynolds and Jackman have already proven their bonafides in understanding exactly what makes their characters tick and what audiences love best about them, and how to mine that deeper than anticipated for epiphanies and catharsis. They’ve proven it separately, and now they’ve proven it together, and audiences are responding exactly as you should expect: by loving it and throwing money at it.
If not sequels, surely there’s potential for an animated Disney+ spinoff with the two characters teaming up for various missions on behalf of the TVA — consider it part of the deal to let Wolverine stay in the same universe with Deadpool. Or a Spider-Verse level animated feature film series, perhaps?
The point is, Deadpool & Wolverine is too big, and the talent involved have way too much fun and love these characters and the fans way too much, for this to simply be a one-off. Deadpool & Wolverine already appears destined to top $1 billion, and the question will soon be “how high can it fly?”
Which is to say, I don’t expect this will be the last time we see the two team up. (‘Til you’re ninety, Mr. Jackman…)
The pair are rumored to appear in Avengers: Secret Wars, and it would certainly be a smart bet after this weekend’s tremendous overperformance. Regardless, Deadpool’s unique nature allows he and this incarnation of Wolverine to work together on missions entirely apart from whatever else happens with the MCU and X-Men and mutants in the main timeline. Keeping Deadpool and Wolverine outside of the main timeline lets them dip in and out as value-added elements who also have their own occasional franchise releases and spinoffs.
Getting back to the question of how high Deadpool & Wolverine can fly, an opening of $400 million would potentially translate into $1.08 billion at the 2.7x final multiplier average of the first two films. But this is a unique case, because of the direct MCU tie-in and much bigger scale of this production. The big budget allows lots of cameos sure to please audiences and add to the buzz around the film.
So a 3x multiplier — good, but not spectacular — would push it toward $1.2 billion or thereabouts. North of that and it challenges for the 2024 box office crown, and I already suspect that’s in the cards.
We’ll see where things settle come Monday, when have a much better idea of what kind of audience response to expect going forward. But right now, things look just about as great as can be for Deadpool & Wolverine, and all signs point to a huge record-breaking opening that paves the way for a $1 billion run.