UPDATE: How the beleaguered theatrical community would love more weekends like this. In a mighty box office weekend all round, Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine rewrote the record books with a $211m North American opening weekend according to revised estimates on Monday, scoring the top debut of 2024 and an all-time high for an R-rated film.
The Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman superhero tentpole became the 34th consecutive Marvel Cinematic Universe release to debut at number one domestically and easily surpassed the unadjusted $132.4m from Deadpool in 2016 to set a new mark for R-rated films.
Playing in 4,210 locations Deadpool & Wolverine also scored the sixth highest opening of all time, set new records for its stars and director Shawn Levy, overtook The Lion King’s $191.8m in 2019 to rank as the highest July opening weekend of all time, and set the highest debut since Spider-Man: No Way Home back in December 2021 on $260.1m.
Ahead of a three-day opening weekend that felt like a vindication for Marvel after last year’s record low bow by The Marvels fuelled talk of superhero fatigue, the film screened to fans at Comic-Con in San Diego on Thursday night and scored record $38.5m previews for an R-rated film.
The opening weekend also delivered the firth highest superhero bow of all time and ensured Disney umbrella releases delivered the top opening in May (20th Century Studios’ Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes), June (Pixar’s Inside Out 2) and now July.
The tentpole drew a 64% male crowd with the 25-34 bracket accounting for the lion’s share 29% of box office. A diverse ethnic demographic saw Caucasians make up 36% of film-goers, Hispanics 31%, African Americans 17%, and Asians 17%. It earned $19.1m from 414 Imax screens.
The weekend heroics combined with $233.1m from 52 international markets to deliver a $444.3m global bow, propelling the Marvel Cinematic Universe past $30bn at the box office. Screen will report full international numbers on Monday.
Across the board the North American box office session showed the kind of depth that has been sorely lacking for years since the pandemic.
In fourth place Deadpool & Wolverine’s Disney stablemate Inside Out 2 – which last week became the top animated film of all time worldwide – confirmed its ranking as the top animated film in North America as $8.3m from 3,150 sites pushed the running total to $613.4m, past the $608.6m set by Incredibles 2 in 2018.
A mere 35% drop in the seventh weekend has resulted in the 14th biggest film ever in North America, and the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar title ever in Canada.
In second place Twisters added $35.3m through Universal in its second weekend for a healthy $154.7m running total, while Universal/Illumination’s Despicable Me 4 in third added $14.6m for $291.4m.
In another encouraging sign, non-tentpoles performed solidly. Neon’s horror hit Longlegs at number five became the company’s top release of all time on $58.6m, overtaking multiple Oscar winner Parasite’s $53.4m and cementing its status as the highest-grossing horror of the year to date.
In its third session, Osgood Perkins’s film earned $6.8m.
And there was a strong limited bow for Focus Features’ Sundance acquisition Didi as Sean Wang’s coming-of-age film opened in five theatres on $200,000 for a per-theatre average of $40,000.
All comparisons are unadjusted for inflation.
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