Weekend Box Office

Weekend Box Office: Deadpool & Wolverine Sets New Record with $205 Million Opening

The Merc with a Mouth and his mutant BFF earned the biggest opening ever for an R-rated movie, while Inside Out 2 became the highest-grossing animated movie ever.

by Erik Childress | July 28, 2024 | Comments

The movie that the industry and theaters were waiting for – before Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, and Twisters helped re-define the failing summer narrative – is here. Deadpool & Wolverine did not disappoint, pulling in the kind of numbers that get it some record headlines and all-timer status that many would have loved back on the weekend of May 3. Nevertheless, speculation has already started as to whether or not the Marvel brand is back on track, as well as what constitutes fan service vs. artistic integrity. But that is for the pundits and critics to argue – some of it, anyway – while the numbers flow in and push the summer season to a respectable level.

**King of the Crop: Deadpool & Wolverine Sets New Record with $205 Million Opening**

One bit of history made by Deadpool & Wolverine this weekend is that it became the ninth film to open to over $200 million, ultimately securing the eighth-highest start in box office history and becoming the sixth Marvel-based film to reside in the top 10. The estimates have D&W at $205 million (ahead of Black Panther’s $202 million in 2018), brought on by $38 million in Thursday “previews” (also the eighth best ever) and a $96 million Friday (the sixth best). None of the $200+ million openers failed to reach $600 million. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the lowest grosser in that group with $620 million, and Marvel’s The Avengers finished with $623 million way back in 2012, when $18.7 million was a huge “preview” audience. (It was still only the seventh highest at the time behind Harry Potter and even Twilight previews, when it was still primarily just midnight previews.) Now the question remains exactly how frontloaded the D&W experience is.

It may not matter, considering the rest of the summer is not going to attract as big of an audience, and those momentarily carved away from Trap (not screening for critics) are not going to keep D&W out of the top spot for at least the next three weeks – possibly being displaced by Alien: Romulus. Half of the other $200+ starters were under $30 million by weekend four. But D&W will continue to cruise into September. It will make short work of The Passion of the Christ, finally overtaking it to become the highest-grossing R-rated film ever and the first to gross $400 million, likely $500 million, and possibly $600 million. It has already beaten its own predecessor, the first Deadpool, by more than $70 million with the biggest opening ever for an R-rated film. Inside Out 2 still remains the film to beat this year, but with already $438 million worldwide, D&W could give it a run for its money.

**The Top 10 and Beyond: Inside Out 2 Becomes Highest-Grossing Animated Film of All Time**

Down to second place is last week’s victor, Twisters, proving for certain that it is not Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning on the weekend of Barbie and Oppenheimer. The disaster adventure grossed $35.3 million in its second weekend, down 56% in D&W’s wake (Dead Reckoning fell over 64% last year) but still boasting a healthy total of nearly $155 million to date. That is about $10 million behind the pace of The Amazing Spider-Man, which had a $34.6 million second frame before taking a nosedive to just $10 million the weekend after. Though it is $31 million off the pace of the first Transformers film, its $37 million second weekend and later drop seems more in line with Twisters. A big drop next week could put the low-end estimate at around a $225 million domestic finish. But we could also see an additional haul of another $25-50 million over that. However, its international total remains very light with just $43.5 million to date for the $155 million production and that could be concerning for its bottom line.

In third place is the film about to become the second $300+ million grosser of the year. Despicable Me 4 is likely to get that title just under the wire before Deadpool & Wolverine does. The latest in the Gru & Minions franchise grossed $14.2 million, bringing its total to nearly $291 million. That is the 12th-best total ever for a July opener after 24 days. The weekend is lower than Despicable Me 2’s $16.4 million but higher than Minions’ $12.3 million. Their 24-day totals were $295 million and $287 million, respectively, putting the current film on a roadmap for somewhere north of $340 million as expected. Globally the film is over $677 million.

Fourth place belong to the aforementioned Inside Out 2 with $8.3 million in its seventh weekend. Its total is now over $613 million domestic and $1.506 million worldwide, passing Top Gun: Maverick for 12th on the all-time list with Furious 7 ($1.515 billion) and Marvel’s The Avengers ($1.520 billion) in its sights to join the top 10 highest-grossing films ever. This week it became the highest-grossing animated film of all-time. That’s one title that Deadpool & Wolverine can’t take away from it.

Fifth place is the indie story of the year, as Oz Perkins’ Longlegs continued its run with $6.7 million in its third weekend. With $58.6 million in just 17 days, the film is now the highest-grossing title in Neon’s history, passing Bong Joon-Ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite. The top-grossing horror film of the year is still A Quiet Place: Day One, which earned $3 million to bring the prequel’s total to over $134 million. After a rather soft year for horror – save for some indie success stories like Late Night with the Devil and Maxxxine – these numbers are a nice reminder that the horror crowd will ultimately throw their support around films meeting their quality standards.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is going to end up in the $190 million limbo range. That’s still a great limbo to be in after making $1.2 million in its eighth weekend and a worldwide total of over $395 million. Much better association for Sony than releasing Apple’s Fly Me To the Moon. The $100 million production fell 77% in its third weekend and has now grossed just $19 million domestic and $36 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest flops of the year.

Also opening this weekend was The Fabulous Four (aka Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally, and Sheryl Lee Ralph). Bleecker Street’s foursome grossed $1 million in 1,045 theaters. The Indian revenge film Raayan had just enough with $450,000 to sneak into the top 10. A24 kept Sing Sing in just four theaters this weekend where it grossed $46,000 for a still pretty solid $11,611 per-theater average after three weeks of limited release. Focus released Sundance award winner Didi in five theaters. It grossed $200,000 for a PTA of $40,000, the third best of 2024 behind Kinds of Kindness ($75,458) and The Taste of Things ($43,350). ffs opening PTA was $34,280, now the fifth best of the year.

On the Vine: M. Night Shyamalan Sets His Latest Trap

M. Night Shyamalan’s opens his latest, Trap, in theaters, though, once again, Warner Bros. is choosing not to screen the film for critics. They even screened his daughter’s film, The Watchers, for press and that ended up at 32% on the Tomatometer. How badly are they fearing reviews on this thing to forego screenings altogether? Speaking of fearing reaction, Sony is finally releasing Harold and the Purple Crayon, which began filming in 2022 and was scheduled to hit theaters as early as January 2023. Look for its release finally this Friday.