'Deadpool 2' Ends 'Infinity War' Box Office Reign With $125M Opening
"Deadpool 2" finally kicks off "Avengers: Infinity War" from the top spot in the box office rankings. The superhero sequel is off to a great start by hauling in $125 million in North America alone, despite the movie's R-rating.
20th Century Fox has dug themselves a gold mine with this new franchise from Marvel Comics, with "Deadpool 2" coming out strong with a $125 million tally in ticket sales from 4,349 venues, as the Express Tribune noted.
It was a promising start to the new "Deadpool" movie, but it still fell short of the $132.4 million that was raked in by the first movie back in 2016. The first "Deadpool," still starring Ryan Reynolds, took in a record $132.4 million in its opening weekend, the biggest ever for an R-rated film.
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Sales overseas padded the total by another $176 million, making a grand total of $301 million that "Deadpool 2" earned on its first weekend.
While the "Deadpool" sequel was not able to match the lofty record set by the first movie, this weekend's haul was not too bad, considering that the $125 it managed to bring in still made it the second-best opening for an R-rated film.
This take was also the second highest opening weekend for 20th Century Fox in its entire history, as well. Just in the opening weekend box office sales for this year alone, "Deadpool 2" is only surpassed by "Black Panther" and "Avengers: Infinity War."
One of those was the breakout movie that introduced Marvel fans to Wakanda, and the other is, well, Marvel's behemoth of a blockbuster for 2018. Considering that "Deadpool 2" is a sequel, that's not bad at all, all things considered.
In any case, $125 million was more than enough to put "Deadpool 2" over "Avengers: Infinity War," which is already on its fourth weekend. By this time, "Avengers" is looking ready to wrap up its box office run after grossing $28.7 this past weekend, to bring its total haul to a whopping $1.8 billion worldwide.
The $301 million it also took in worldwide still does not include the giant box-office market of China, where the movie does not have a release date yet, as of this time, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
All that considered, "Deadpool 2" still managed to be the biggest international opening for Fox for all time, beating "X-men: Days of Future Past" and its $174-million record, as well as "Logan" which used to hold the title of biggest global release for an R-rated movie at $160 million.
The success of "Deadpool 2" was in large part due to its main star Ryan Reynolds, who was constantly promoting the movie leading up to its May 18 launch.
"The audience's appetite for Merc with the Mouth hasn't waned at all," Fox domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson said in a statement. "And Ryan Reynolds was tireless in promoting this movie on a global basis," he added.
"Deadpool 2" premiered in movie theaters in the US last Friday, May 18.
