Paper Man and Buying the Cow Leading Man Ryan Reynolds scores minor new hit with Deadpool & Wolverine

Huh. People really like the lead guy from Waiting. Or at least, they like him in one specific role, because Ryan Reynolds was not always a bankable summertime draw. Back over Labor Day weekend 2011, it looked like Ryan Reynolds had lost his touch as a leading man. Over the preceding summer, he'd anchored two box office bombs (Green Lantern and The Change-Up) demonstrating he couldn't quite work as either a superhero or an R-rated comedy headliner. Save for the 2012 Denzel Washington hit Safe House, Reynolds experienced a subsequent five years of major misses, including the costly 2013 dud R.I.P.D. However, the Chaos Theory and Amityville Horror leading man bounced back with Deadpool in 2016 and started a box office hot streak that burned especially bright this weekend. Bringing Reynolds and his Merc with a Mouth character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proved a combination audiences couldn't wait to devour.

Opening to $211 million this frame, Deadpool & Wolverine became only the ninth film in history to score a $200+ million domestic bow. It also secured the biggest North American July opening in history (beating the $191.7 million debut of 2019's The Lion King) and opened 60% ahead of the first Deadpool's $132 million domestic debut. That's also the sixth-biggest domestic opening weekend in history. That feat means that eight of the 12 biggest domestic openings in history (including the top three largest debuts in history) belong to Marvel Studios productions. Exempting the two Deadpool movies, only one prior X-Men film (X-Men: The Last Stand) opened to $100+ million. Deadpool & Wolverine more than doubled The Last Stand's $102.7 million bow and left openers like X-Men: Apocalypse (a $65.7 million debut) in the dust on opening day alone. Needless to say, this was also the biggest opening weekend in history for an R-rated movie. Deadpool & Wolverine will have no trouble eventually dethroning 2004's The Passion of the Christ ($370.7 million) to become the biggest R-rated movie ever domestically.

There’s really no surprise here in Deadpool & Wolverine becoming a pop culture phenomenon. The promise of the two big X-Men movie franchise stars joining forces for the first time under the Marvel Studios banner was always going to appeal to people. Disney and Marvel ran with that enticing concept with a relentless marketing campaign that started at the Super Bowl and just never ended with major promotional tie-ins and star-studded promo stops. After Marvel’s dismal 2023 with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Secret Invasion, and The Marvels, the studio needed a big hit more than ever. It got just that with Deadpool & Wolverine.

Now the question becomes, how well will this film hold in the weeks to come? Marvel movies released in July tend to have larger second-weekend declines than MCU properties unleashed in May or November. People can see these films during the week more easily in July (thanks school holidays!), so there’s less pent-up demand to see them during the weekend. Ant-Man and the Wasp, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Widow, all had 60+% drops. Among July MCU movies debuting on a Friday, only Ant-Man's 56% decline in 2015 escaped this phenomenon.

Deadpool & Wolverine should follow suit next weekend with a similar drop of over 60%. However, its solid word-of-mouth (that A CinemaScore) and its decent day-to-day holds over the opening weekend (it did roughly 5.9 times Thursday night showings over the whole weekend) suggest it'll stabilize after that. With no massive tentpoles arriving in August, Deadpool & Wolverine, at the very least, has a clear shot at hurdling past $500 million, How much higher it goes all depends on word-of-mouth and the performance of August 2024 newcomers. However its future weekends unfold, and Deadpool & Wolverine is already a massive hit. Now just imagine how much bigger it would've been had they thrown in an appearance from the Generation X cast....

Last weekend’s champion, Twisters, didn’t crumble in the face of the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe behemoth. On the contrary, it had a mighty respectable 57% drop for a $35.3 million second frame. Removing the $10.7 million Twisters made at Thursday night showings, this feature only dipped 50% this weekend. After ten days, Twisters has grossed $155.6 million, nearly doubling its $81 million bow. A domestic total north of $225 million is now assured for this smash hit.

Another remarkable feat for Twisters was how well it performed against a $200+ million opener. This was the first time in history a movie grossed $20+ million the same weekend another motion picture bowed to $200+ million. Previously, titles like Jurassic World, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Avengers: Infinity War bowed in marketplaces where every other movie had weekend sums beneath $15 million. By contrast, Twisters excelled in this frame while Deadpool & Wolverine eked past pre-release expectations. This historic feat doesn’t just echo Mamma Mia! opening to terrific numbers the same weekend The Dark Knight opened to $158 million. It also epitomizes how the marketplace can expand tremendously when there are appealing movies for people to see. The domestic box office doesn’t need to grind to a halt just to make room for one superhero movie titan. 

Dipping 40% this weekend in third place was Despicable Me 4. Adding $14.2 million, this blockbuster now stands at $290.9 million domestically. This sequel is currently only 5% behind Despicable Me 2’s North American haul at the same point. That indicates Despicable Me 4 will end its North American run in the $340-350 million range. Fellow animated sequel hit Inside Out 2 added another $8.3 million this weekend. That’s a tiny 35% drop from last weekend. Now officially the biggest animated movie ever domestically (surpassing fellow Pixar blockbuster Incredibles 2), Inside Out 2 has now grossed $613.4 million. It now stands as the 14th biggest movie in history in North America. Sometime next weekend, Inside Out 2 will exceed Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s $620.1 million domestic haul to become the 13th biggest movie ever on that list.

Sometimes, a massive domestic opener leaves all but one or two movies plummeting sharply from the previous frame. This weekend, though, nearly all holdovers performed pretty much in line with their performances over the last few frames. Deadpool & Wolverine was massive, but there was room for everyone. Take Longlegs, for example. This Osgood Perkins movie fell 43% for a $6.7 million third weekend sum. With $58.6 million, it’s surpassed Parasite as Neon's biggest movie ever. If it rounds up an additional $18.3 million, it'll surpass Everything Everywhere All at Once's domestic gross to become bigger than all A24 films domestically. That would be a tremendous feat for this indie horror sensation, though its 17-day haul is already momentous.

Meanwhile, falling 5% this weekend, A Quiet Place: Day One grossed another $3.02 million. After roughly a month in theaters, this spin-off/prequel has amassed a robust $134.2 million domestically. Then there was Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which dropped 52% this weekend, the first time it's had a weekend-to-weekend decline of over 45% in its two months in theaters. Grossing another $1.27 million this frame, Ride or Die now stands at a towering $191.7 million domestic.

Believe it or not, Deadpool & Wolverine wasn't the only new theatrical-wide release this weekend. The Fabulous Four, the latest Book Club 80 for Brady pastiche, opened to $1.01 million this weekend at 1,045 locations for a per-theater average just south of $1,100. That's roughly on par with Summer Camp's bow (though that movie opened in 700 more locations) and is roughly 18% behind the opening weekend of fellow Bleecker Street release Ezra. The Fabulous Four was a major disappointment for a movie opening in over 1,000 theaters. It'd be shocking if this one got past $2.5 million domestically.

Fly Me to the Moon, which shed 2,042 theaters this weekend, plummeted 77% to add just $750,000 to a domestic haul of $19.1 million. Rounding out the top ten was Raayan with $453,000 at 133 locations for a $3,406 per theater average. MaXXXine had almost as hefty a plunge as Fly Me to the Moon, going down 72% for a fourth-weekend gross of $231,820 and a domestic gross of $14.6 million. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, attached to select drive-in screenings of Deadpool & Wolverine, leaped 108% from last weekend. Grossing another $206,000, this smash hit has grossed $170.9 million domestically.

Happily, it wasn't just the big Marvel Studios movie scoring a robust debut this weekend. Sundance 2024 favorite Dìdi (弟弟) also got off to a terrific start in just five locations. This indie feature grossed $200,000 for a fantastic opening weekend per theater average of $40,000, the third-best of 2024. Focus Features is thankfully giving Dìdi (弟弟) a slow roll-out culminating in a wide release break on August 16. That gives this acclaimed feature a lot more room to build on its positive word of mouth and possibly break out to the masses.

Widow Clicquot eased 39% this weekend to add another $113,000 to its domestic haul, which now stands at $396,081 after ten days. Oddity, meanwhile, plummeted 82% to gross just $100,022 for a domestic gross of $1.04 million. Oddity is now only the 50th movie ever for distributor IFC Films to crack $1 million domestically. Four of those 50 titles (including Oddity) came from 2024. Strangely, A24 kept Sing Sing strictly in four theaters for the third weekend in a row before its wide release expansion on Friday. Typically, studios add 50-100 theaters each week to a limited release title before it explodes out into 600+ locations. Sing Sing had a solid hold at those four locations, dipping only 28% to gross $46,443 for a per theater average of $11,611. Three consecutive weekends of $10,000+ per theater averages is outstanding, but keeping Sing Sing confined to just four locations means positive word of mouth on the feature could be solely limited to the New York and Los Angeles areas it's currently playing in. Hopefully it can keep the financial momentum going when it greatly expands its footprint Friday. To date, Sing Sing has grossed $334,991.

Speaking of A24 movies, Janet Planet continued its inexplicable theatrical run, with this distributor awkwardly re-expanding this Annie Baker directorial effort back into 292 theaters with zero promotion. Unsurprisingly, it only grossed $22,345 for a disastrous per theater average of $77 and a domestic total of $721,866. Robot Dreams, in its ninth weekend of domestic release, grossed another $12,500 for a domestic total of $838,326.

Now, let’s pause for a second before wrapping up to observe La Chimera. This Italian Josh O'Connor movie opened over the final week of March 2024 and seemed to be winding down once it expanded to 216 locations in April and only grossed $164,639. However, it’s been a steady performer all summer despite never playing in more than 15 theaters since May 16. As of July 25, it’s exceeded $950,000 domestically and, if distributor Neon keeps it in theaters for another month or so, could surpass $1 million domestically. That would be an impressive feat for an Italian movie that had no high-profile Oscar nods to draw attention to it. This is also a reflection of why it's important to keep arthouse movies around for weeks and weeks theatrically rather than burn through them immediately like IFC did with Ghostlight. These are titles that make money slow and steady, not immediately. Give them the room and time to build up an audience! Neon has not yet reported grosses for La Chimera for this frame.

The top 10 movies this weekend grossed a massive $276.7 million, the tenth-biggest domestic weekend in history, the sixth-biggest frame ever outside of December, and the second-biggest July frame ever (only behind 2023's Barbenheimer weekend). That massive total was also enough to send July 2024's domestic total soaring to $1.068 billion, with the month likely securing around $1.15 billion before August begins. 2024 as a year now stands at $4.6 billion while summer 2024 currently stands at just under $2.6 billion. Roughly 80% of that summertime haul came from June and July alone!

May 2024, just two months ago, drummed up only $550.3 million in total. This single July 2024 weekend achieved 50% of that gross in just three days! A diverse cinematic marketplace is necessary for the box office and theater owners to thrive, I'll say it every week until I'm blue in the face. This weekend, though dominated by a Marvel superhero movie, did achieve that variety by offering Twisters, Longlegs, and even The Fabulous Four and Didi as alternatives to Ryan Reynold's snarkiness. The 2024 domestic box office is off on a grand roll. Now let’s see if August 2024's new movies can take the summer home on a high note. After all, the domestic box office can't fully rely on repeat viewings of the latest movie starring the Just Friends leading man...