Deadpool & Wolverineis set to pass a huge domestic box office milestone that only five other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have crossed before. The movie, which marks the first time that Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s titular heroes have appeared in the franchise, is the 34th installment in the MCU and the fourth theatrical release in Phase 5. TheDeadpool & Wolverinebox officehas pulled the MCU out of its slump after 2023’sThe Marvelsbecame its lowest-grossing film ever, as the 2024 teamup quickly rose past $1 billion and became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.
PerDeadline, as of Saturday morning,Deadpool & Wolverineis projected to pass the $600 milestone at the domestic box officeby the end of the four-day Labor Day holiday weekend. This will make it the 16th movie to ever pass that enormous milestone in North America, with the most recent before it having been Pixar’sInside Out 2, which currently sits at a total of $647.2 million. It will also become the sixth of the MCU’s 34 movies to have passed that milestone.
How Deadpool & Wolverine Compares To Other MCU Hits
The 2024 Movie Is A Dazzling Success
By passing this milestone,Deadpool & Wolverinehas entered rarefied air for the franchise. Of the five Marvel movies above it on the all-time domestic chart,three areAvengerscrossover movies featuring teamups of the franchise’s most prominent heroes. Only two others,Spider-Man: No Way HomeandBlack Panther, center on heroes who are the leads of their own subfranchises. Below, see how the movie’s total at the end of the holiday weekend compares to theMCU moviesthat are above it on the domestic chart:
#2
$858.4 million
#3
$814.9 million
#6
$700.4 million
#8
$678.8 million
#13
$623.3 million
#16
Deadpool & Wolverine(2024)
~$600 million
TheDeadpool & Wolverinereleaseclimbing so high up the chart is a staggering result considering thatit is the first R-rated release ever put out by the franchise. Every other movie in the MCU has been rated PG-13, which allowed them to be open to a much wider audience base, though that does not seem to have limited the prospects of the new 2024 title in any significant way. In fact, it is excelling on the domestic chart in ways that another of its predecessors has been unable to.
Although 2015’sAvengers: Age of Ultronis still aboveDeadpool & Wolverineon the franchise’s worldwide box office chart for the MCU,it performed considerably worse than the new movie in the domestic marketplaceand only made up for it with international grosses. That movie ranks at No. 27 on the all-time domestic chart at the time of writing with a gross of $459 million. This throws the new movie’s ability to connect with North American audiences into even sharper relief.
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AlthoughDeadpool & Wolverineis the sixth movie in the franchise to pass this major milestone, it will most likely not be the last. Even though there have been recent box office stumbles includingThe Marvelsand 2023’sAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, there is still an enormous capacity for success. However,not just any Marvel movie has the ability to break past $600 millionat the domestic box office, as has been proven by the domestic grosses of the previous installments that have not achieved that record, ranging fromThe Marvels' $84.5 million toAge of Ultron’s $459 million.
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It seems likely that the success ofDeadpool & Wolverinecame from the movie’s potent combination of iconic legacy characters with the fact thatHugh Jackman’s Wolverine had not been seen on the big screen in seven years, since 2017’sLogan, while Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool had been away for six, since 2018’sDeadpool 2. This combination is likely what also drove the success ofSpider-Man: No Way Home, which featured cameos from previous iterations of theSpider-Manuniverse including the Sam Raimi trilogy from the 2000s and the Marc Webb duology from the 2010s.
Deadpool & Wolverinemade a name for itself by including many surprising cameos from legacy characters who originally appeared in movies from throughout the Fox Marvel universe includingBlade,Elektra,Fantastic Four, andX-Men.
Whileupcoming MCU movieslikeCaptain America: Brave New World,Blade, andThunderbolts*all have the potential to do well, it does not seem likely that any of them have the combination of iconic heroes and nostalgia to push them past that milestone so soon afterDeadpool & Wolverine.Fantastic Fourmay find itself with the opportunity, especially if the movie indeed features the first glimpse at Robert Downey Jr.’s return as Doctor Doom. However,the most likely candidate would be the next full-on crossover,Avengers: Doomsday, which could easily join its three predecessors on the all-time domestic chart.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Cast
A follow-up to the highly successful Deadpool and Deadpool 2 films starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth. The third film will be the first in the franchise to be developed under the Marvel Studios banner following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.
