New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Kim Hollis: Deadpool, the Marvel superhero film featuring Ryan Reynolds in the title role, earned $132.7 million from Friday-to-Sunday and $152.2 million over the four-day holiday weekend. It also made $125 million overseas. How did Fox and Marvel achieve such a lofty result?

Jason Barney: The opening of Deadpool reinforces something I learned when Guardians of the Galaxy came out a year and a half ago. I think it is impossible to accurately predict (to the upside) just how much the Marvel universe has influenced the movie industry. It is almost always to the upside. Perhaps my estimates should be compared with how Ant-Man performed, but for the longest time, I honestly thought Deadpool would be on the lower end of the money makers in the Marvel universe. I mean, I didn’t discount the film, but it wasn’t until some of the first reviews came out that I started to think we might have something special here like we did with Guardians of the Galaxy.

My point is that it just didn’t open strong. Marvel has managed to set another record, and it has done it at a particularly interesting time. February isn’t exactly the hottest month at the box office, but Deadpool has opened larger than most summer blockbusters. ANY discussion of superhero fatigue should be put on the shelf for a long time.

Deadpool’s opening is nothing short of amazing on many levels. Let’s discount the fact that a large portion of the movie-going population of the United States experienced truly frigid temperatures this weekend. Deadpool was made for $60 million and the marketing and advertising probably pushed this well north of $100 million. With a four-day total over $150 million, everything from here on out is pure profit. For a product in the Marvel universe, this is huge; for any film it is beyond noteworthy.
At this point I am not as convinced as some that a lot of this weekend’s number is front-loading, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a decent to strong hold next weekend. Its Rotten Tomatoes rating is only going to help.

When all is said and done, Deadpool will likely have earned more than $300 million domestically. I don’t think anyone was predicting that when this was put on the schedule.

Felix Quinonez Jr: I'd say that they nailed it with the advertising which hit all the right beats. Going all the way back to the Comic-Con preview a year ago, they have been teasing the movie perfectly. It also helped, a lot, that Ryan Reynolds pulled out all the stops to get the word out. His enthusiasm for the movie and love for the character has been very evident and definitely helped raise audience interest. But more important, the ads and promos nailed the tone perfectly. They were both weird and intriguing.

This showed fans that the movie would handle the character properly. And this was especially important because the studio's previous attempt at bringing Deadpool to the big screen was an unmitigated disaster.

And the trailers themselves were funny and action packed enough to attract audiences outside of the character's fan base. Also, we can't leave out the fact that the movie itself seems to be really good. It has great reviews and a very solid "A" cinema score. But another major asset was the release date. Deadpool had the both Valentine's Day and President's Day to help its opening weekend.

Continued:       1       2       3