Deadpool Has Now Passed Guardians of The Galaxy At The Domestic Box Office

Deadpool has pushed past Guardians of the Galaxy at the domestic box office, making it the second-biggest opening installment of a solo superhero franchise.

Only Spider-Man and Marvel's The Avengers had bigger box office hauls for their first movies, and it's common to differentiate between The Avengers and the other big "first" movies, since Avengers was both the first installment in its own franchise and the culminating event of the Marvel Studios Phase One solo films.

Spider-Man, of course, is on reboot #3, and continues to be one of the most popular and important superhero properties in Hollywood even after a pair of high-profile failures in Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

This is huge not only because Deadpool is a relatively unknown character to the general public -- as were Iron Man and the Guardians before their movies, really -- but because it now means two of the top three highest-grossing comic book origins of all time have taken place outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which runs counter to the frequent argument that superhero fatigue could set in if Marvel ever started to slow down.

It's also significant, of course, because the relatively modest budget of Deadpool means that the film is wildly profitable, from a return-on-investment point of view, and could help lead to more mid-budget superhero films being developed. Warner Bros. has long been rumored to be interested in pursuing some $50 million-ish superhero films to fill in between $200 million mega-blockbusters like next week's Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Based upon Marvel Comics' most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.