Deadpool & Wolverine Shatters R-Rated Box Office Record With $438 Million Global Opening

Deadpool & Wolverine delivered Hollywood's biggest opening weekend since 2021, and obliterated the goalposts for any R-rated blockbusters going forward.

By Russ Burlingame

Deadpool & Wolverine scored Hollywood's biggest opening weekend since Spider-Man: No Way Home and one of the top ten biggest opening weekends of all time at the box office, earning over $204 million in North America and $483.3 million worldwide. Along the way, it sprinted past the previous record the highest opening ever by an R-rated movie, which was Deadpool with $132 million. Deadpool & Wolverine also passed Inside Out 2 (which debuted with $155 million) to become the highest overall domestic opening weekend of 2024. Only nine movies have ever managed to open to over $200 million, and of those nine, six are Marvel movies and eight are Disney movies (the outlier being Jurassic World, which was distributed by Universal).

The box office tally as of now is an estimate, which may go up or down slightly, but rarely changes by more than about $1 million. That means it's likely Deadpool will open with the eighth-largest opening weekend of all time, behind Marvel's The Avengers and ahead of Black Panther.

Hollywood has been in a bit of a slump in recent years, with numerous big-budget blockbusters failing to catch fire at the box office. While there have been some huge hits, Deadpool's opening weekend isn't just Marvel's biggest since 2021 -- it's also Hollywood's biggest opening overall since No Way Home. 

They needed Deadpool & Wolverine to be a success -- not just to counter the narrative that Marvel is in decline, but also because it was an expensive movie to make. This one reportedly cost $200 million, with another $100 million or so spent on marketing -- as opposed to the lean $58 million or so it cost to make the first Deadpool.

Deadpool & Wolverine is already the sixth-highest grossing movie of 2024 globally, behind Kung-Fu Panda 4 ($545,626,023) and ahead of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ($396,765,534). The success is even more pronounced at the domestic box office, where it's at #2 for the year, sandwiched between Inside Out 2 ($607,606,731) and Dune: Part Two ($282,144,358). All these numbers are via Box Office Mojo, although they have not yet updated with new estimates for the weekend, so some of these numbers may shift a little for any title still in theaters.

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In Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) will change the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The film also stars Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox, and Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, with the return of Deadpool alums Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Stefan Kapičić as Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Rob Delaney as Peter, and Lewis Tan as Shatterstar. Aaron Stanford is returning as Pyro from the X-Men film series, with Jennifer Garner rumored to return as Elektra Natchios. 

Kevin Feige, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy and Lauren Shuler Donner produce with Louis D'Esposito, Wendy Jacobson, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, George Dewey and Simon Kinberg serving as executive producers. Deadpool & Wolverine is written by Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells & Shawn Levy. Deadpool & Wolverine was released exclusively in theaters on July 26th.

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