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‘Deadpool’ Record Box Office: Movie Takes In $135 Million, Shattering Previous President’s Day Weekend Record

By Louis Babcock
Published on: 11:14 PST, Feb 14, 2016

Deadpool shattered the previous box office record for an opening during President’s Day weekend. Generating a box office of $135 million, Deadpool has already made a profit of $77 million dollars. The previous record holder, Fifty Shades of Grey, had a President’s Day weekend box office of $85.2 million. Based on box office projections, Deadpool could end up with a total of $150 million over the four-day holiday weekend. Deadpool set another record by becoming the highest grossing Thursday night opening for a rated R movie. Deadpool brought in $12.7 million for its Thursday night opening.

The competition for Deadpool during President’s Day weekend was non-existent. Other movies that were out this past weekend were How to Be Single which made $18.7 million, Zoolander 2 which generated 13.4 million, Kung Fu Panda 3 that had a weekend box office of $19.6 million, and Hail, Caesar which saw a revenue of $6.6 million. All those movies combined had a box office take of $58.3 million, which was $300,000 more than the budget of Deadpool.

When Marvel announced that Ryan Reynolds would be playing the role of Wade Wilson/Deadpool, comic book fans were vocal about Ryan’s performance as a superhero in the DC Universe. Reynolds, infamously, starred in the Green Lantern. The Green Lantern movie did very poorly and Reynolds was blamed for it. It looks as though that Reynolds has silenced all the critics who said he should never star as a superhero ever again. Reynolds has clearly found a home in the Marvel Universe as Deadpool. Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore commented on the box office and Ryan Reynolds.

“All it takes is one gigantic, massive, record-breaking movie to put a career back on track.”

Not only is Ryan’s career back on track, but he has already been confirmed to reprise his role as Deadpool in the sequel. Earlier this week, TheInquisitr reported on the story of Marvel approving a sequel and that Reynolds would remain as Deadpool. Some speculated that Marvel was putting the cart before the house in announcing that a sequel was already going to happen. Clearly, Marvel knew what they had with Reynolds as Deadpool. The only question mark was whether or not a rated R superhero movie would score big at the box office. Marvel now has $135 million answers to that question.

Creating a superhero movie with an R rating was risky. Comic books and superheroes have almost always pandered to the under 18 demographic. Very few superhero stories are marketed to adults. Deadpool is one of those heroes. With the nickname of the “Merc with a Mouth,” Deadpool pulls no punches with his dialogue or his actions.

The Deadpool character goes against the grain of storytelling by breaking the fourth wall and being completely self-aware that he is a comic book character in a fictional world. When a character breaks the fourth wall, they address the audience directly. Deadpool breaking the fourth wall is generally when the character displays his dark sense of humor.

Has Marvel proven that superhero movies do not have to be rated PG-13 or less in order to make large amounts of money? Perhaps we will see more adult storylines in the future with the comic book characters that we grew up with.

Deadpool has launched the massive superhero movie schedule for 2016. Marvel has been ruling Hollywood with their billions of dollars in ticket sales from their movie universe. This year we will see DC step up and try and prove that they can knock Marvel out of the top spot in the superhero genre. In just over a month, Batman V. Superman will hit theaters. Experts state that this movie could easily join the billion dollar movie club.

How much money do you think Deadpool will take in for the entire theater run?

[Image Via Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images]

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