Sorry Dougray Scott, Deadpool & Wolverine is now the biggest R-rated movie of all-time worldwide

Believe it or not, before 2016, only one R-rated movie in history had cracked $700+ million worldwide. That honor belonged to The Matrix Reloaded, a rarity among features folks only aged 17 and older could see alone. Global R-rated blockbusters were so scarce that, before the 2010s began, Troy was technically the fifth-biggest R-rated movie globally! Only 16 pre-2010 movies in history grossed $400+ million worldwide, a signal to Hollywood that such titles (in theory) had limited pull globally. The perception was that both domestic and global moviegoers preferred all-ages projects with minimal sex, restrained language, and cartoonish violence. That staus quo got upended when the original Deadpool became the biggest R-rated movie of all-time worldwide in 2016. No longer did sequels to popular 1999 movies have a monopoly on global R-rated box office success!

A steady stream of further global R-rated blockbusters like It, Deadpool 2, Logan, and Oppenheimer followed, culminating in Joker becoming the first R-rated movie to ever secure $1+ billion worldwide in 2019. Everything's come full circle now, thanks to Deadpool & Wolverine taking home the worldwide box office crown for an R-rated movie. Currently, this massive hit has amassed $1.085 billion compared to Joker's $1.064 billion gross. Deadpool & Wolverine is nowhere near done with its global box office run (it's likely got at least another $110 million in the tank domestically), so expect it to keep on chugging and leaving all other R-rated films in the dust globally.

Currently, Deadpool & Wolverine is the 36th-biggest movie ever worldwide, just behind the $1.104 billion gross of Transformers: Age of Extinction. It'll surpass that Michael Bay movie sometime this weekend. The $1.150 billion gross should get shattered by this particular title by the start of next week. Right now, the first-ever R-rated Marvel Studios release is the 17th biggest Walt Disney Pictures release in history. It has no chance of surpassing Inside Out 2's $1.595 billion gross to become Disney's biggest 2024 film worldwide, but hey, that's a high bar for any film to beat. Deadpool & Wolverine is also currently the 11th biggest Marvel Studios release in history.

How high can it go globally? I'd wager we're looking at a final total in the $1.275-1.3 billion range. On the low end, that would mean Deadpool & Wolverine edges out Frozen's $1.273 billion gross to become the 22nd biggest movie ever globally. That would be enough to make this raunchy comedy the seventh-biggest Marvel Cinematic Universe feature ever globally, dethroning Iron Man 3 for that slot. Needless to say, that projected $1.275 billion finish (on the low end) would also trample the $781.9 million worldwide gross of the first Deadpool by an eye-popping 63%.

Returning to the domain of R-rated movies, even after Hollywood's learned to stop worrying and embrace the R-rated tentpole, Deadpool & Wolverine's worldwide gross leaves most other R-rated features in the dust. There are still only 20 R-rated motion pictures in history (including Deadpool & Wolverine!) that have exceeded $500 million worldwide. To put things into perspective, Deadpool & Wolverine is now guaranteed to more than double the $622.3 million worldwide haul of The Passion of the Christ and Logan's $614.2 million worldwide gross! Even with the Marvel Studios logo attached to its marketing materials, Deadpool & Wolverine is obliterating all norms for R-rated blockbusters.

Could anything ever dehtrone this kind of once-in-a-lifetime box office performance for the title of biggest R-rated movie worldwide? Joker: Folie a Deux has a shot at such an achievement, but it'll need to really leapfrog past its predeccesors global sum to get there. Beyond that, it's hard to see any other R-rated films on the immediate horizon that could dethrone Deadpool & Wolverine. This one's gonna hold onto this box office record for a long while.

One last thing about this achievement: go take a look at where Deadpool & Wolverine's worldwide box office haul falls in director Shawn Levy's filmography. Prior to 2024, Levy only had one movie (Night at the Museum) that cracked $500+ million globally. Now he's behind the camera on the biggest R-rated movie in history. This film's already done nearly ten times the worldwide gross of Levy's Just Married from 2003 and nearly surpassed the lifetime gross of his 2002 feature Big Fat Liar just in its domestic Thursday night grosses alone. As R-rated films in general can attest, one global hit can make all the difference in the world...