‘Deadpool’ Crushing the Box Office, Setting Records

A rated R superhero film, let alone one that came out in February may have seemed like a pretty big gamble for Fox, but it appears that Deadpool is one that paid off. Deadpool brought in $135 million in the domestic market its opening weekend, with another $125 million in the foreign market.

That’s not bad for a movie that only had a $58 million budget.

This gives Deadpool the biggest February opening weekend of all time (beating 50 Shades of Grey), as well as the biggest Winter opening as well (beating American Sniper). The film also has the biggest rated R opening of all time, and those three things hold up even with totals adjusted for inflation.

Heck, looking at Fox’s X-Men-continuity, it’s already made more than The Wolverine did in the domestic market during its entire run.

This is, of course, huge for Fox. What I hope though is that Hollywood doesn’t take this as a queue to make a whole bunch of copycat Rated R superhero movies just because Deadpool was successful. Deadpool is doing this well because it’s true to the spirit of the character. Likewise though, a Rated R version of The Flash would be terrible. Each property needs to be treated differently, and with nuance.

I just don’t know if “nuance” is in the studios’ vocabulary.

Via BoxOfficeMojo