Deadpool & Wolverine's Second Weekend

Deadpool & Wolverine followed up its record-breaking domestic debut (revised up to $211 million from the initially reported $205 million) with a second weekend take of $97 million that has raised its grand total to $396 million.

This works out to a 54 percent drop from the film's first weekend gross to its second. This is not small--but it is also a good deal better than was seen for many past Marvel films (many recent installments having drops in the 60-70 percent range, and typically at the high end of that range), and the more surprising not only in light of this being a "threequel" with a massive debut, but the highly gimmicky and cult-y nature of the material. Indeed, the Boxoffice Pro forecast for the movie had a 50-60 percent range for the likely drop, resulting in an $80-$100 million take, so the movie did about as well as could be expected.

The result is that the movie that looked as if it could be "super front-loaded" may have decent legs after all. Based on that 54 percent number--which on the basis of comparison with other films suggests to me that the movie may have taken in just 65-70 percent of its final North American gross--it is not only clear that the movie will blast past the half billion dollar mark in North America, but I suspect it will end up in the $550-$600 million range. As the film has been doing more than equally well overseas (the international gross is in the vicinity of $428 million at last report) it seems certain to break past the billion-dollar mark as well, though by how much remains to be seen. Right now we have a 52/48 international/domestic split in favor of the international market, which, if it were to hold through the movie's run, would (extrapolating from the "low" $550 million figure for North America) translate to a global finish in at least the $1.15 billion range. However, should the proportion end up matching that for Deadpool 2 (57/43 international/domestic), as the movie proves just that little bit leggier that would get it up to the $600 million North American finish, we could be looking at a global gross as high as $1.4 billion (so, more or less what I guessed back in June, it seems).

In either case we have a franchise best for the Deadpool and X-Men sagas. It would also be (Spider-Man apart) the MCU's highest-grossing film since before the pandemic, in real terms. The movie would also beat Joker's record for an R-rated film, if we leave inflation out of the matter, while should it reach the higher end of the $1.15-$1.4 billion range discussed here it will probably beat Joker in real, inflation-adjusted, terms as well.

No matter how you look at it, this one has been a winner commercially. However, I still stand by my earlier judgment that a Hollywood which has salivated after a hit like this one for quite some time is all too likely to draw the wrong lessons from it--seeing it not as a matter of a movie winning by giving audiences "something completely different" and especially by appealing deeply to a selected audience and pleasing them and not worrying about anyone else, but as a green light to just go on barraging audiences with superhero movies plain and simple, very likely to their cost.