Deadpool And Wolverine Tops The Weekend Box Office Again As Summer 2024 Ends With A Whimper
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Summer 2024 will be remembered in box office history as a season of big ups and downs. The industry was well aware going in that it was going to be a strange stretch thanks to last year's Hollywood labor battles postponing a large number of productions, and expectations bore out – with things starting slow in May before getting hot in June and July. Ultimately, there was a lot of success to report on in the last few months, but August has ended with a whimper instead of a bang.
Without any high profile releases arriving in theaters this past Friday, the box office Top 10 this week looks a whole lot like the box office results from last week... albeit with smaller numbers. Check out the reported numbers below and join me after for analysis.
Deadpool & Wolverine Wraps Summer 2024 At The Top Of The Box Office, Gets Set To Cross $600 Million Domestically
As far as bright spots at the box office are concerned, Shawn Levy's Deadpool & Wolverine is clearly one of 2024's great highlights so far. The Marvel Cinematic Universe had a rough go in 2023, with the success of James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 overshadowed by the disappointments of both Peyton Reed's Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania and Nia DaCosta's The Marvels, but the franchise's first R-rated film has allowed things to get back on track.
According to The Numbers, Deadpool & Wolverine closed out August/began September by adding $15.2 million to its coffers domestically, allowing it to win its fifth box office crown in the last six weeks (the release of Fede álvarez's Alien: Romulus having interrupted the streak earlier this month). So far, the film has earned $599.5 million in the United States and Canada, meaning that it will certainly end Labor Day weekend by crossing $600 million in the region. That's a feat that has only been accomplished by five other titles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Endgame ($858.4 million) and Avengers: Infinity War ($678.8 million), Jon Watts' Spider-Man: No Way Home ($814.8 million), Ryan Coogler's Black Panther ($700.1 million) and Joss Whedon's The Avengers ($623.4 million).
The blockbuster is also now ranked as the seventh biggest hit for the MCU worldwide – its ticket sales worldwide having surpassed those of Shane Black's Iron Man 3 (which made $1.215 million back in 2013). Deadpool & Wolverine has now made $1.258 million). It will need to earn about $77 million more to further climb up the franchise rankings and surpass Black Panther (which memorably earned $1.334 million in 2018), but it's questionable if it will have the legs to pull off that feat at this point in the movie's theatrical run.
Deadpool & Wolverine won't go down as the biggest hit of summer 2024 (that superlative belongs to Kelsey Mann's Inside Out 2, which you'll note is still hanging out at the bottom of the Top 10), but there is little question that it will end up being reflected on as one of the year's most substantial big screen wins. Despite its audience reach theoretically being limited by being an R-rating, it has nonetheless been more successful than Chris Renaud's all-ages friendly Despicable Me 4, and, as noted a few weeks ago, it has officially become the most successful R-rated release of all time, having outgrossed Todd Phillips' Joker.
Looking at the slate of upcoming 2024 movies, one wonders what titles if any could end up eclipsing it in the worldwide box office rankings. Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie á Deux will at least threaten Deadpool & Wolverine's stature in the coming weeks, and the end of the year features some major releases like Ridley Scott's Gladiator II, Jon Chu's Wicked, and David Derrick Jr., Dana Ledoux Miller, and Jason Hand's Moana 2 (though it's noteworthy that all three of those titles will be in head-to-head competition during the Thanksgiving holiday).
New Releases Reagan And Afraid Fail To Stir Up Much Interest On The Big Screen
The Top 3 at the box office (Deadpool & Wolverine followed by Alien: Romulus and Justin Baldoni's It Ends With Us) primarily didn't change this weekend because the newest titles to arrive on the big screen failed to generate much interest. This included Sean McNamara's Reagan starring Dennis Quaid and Chris Weitz's A.I.-centric horror movie Afraid.
Distributed by ShowBiz Direct, Reagan at least managed to score a spot in the Top 10, arriving in fourth place just ahead of Lee Issac Chung's Twisters (which added $7.2 million to its domestic total in its seventh week of release and has made $258 million in the region to date). The movie made $7.4 million playing in 2,754 theaters.
Afraid wasn't nearly as "successful." Despite having a solid cast including John Cho and Katherine Waterston, the Blumhouse-produced feature was basically ignored on the big screen over the last three days. Sony Pictures had the film playing in over 3,000 locations nationwide, but it only managed to make $3.7 million – resulting in a dismal $1,232 per theater average.
These results don't exactly belie industry expectations, as the end of August is often seen as a dumping ground for films that are deemed to have no chance of success at any other time of the year. Still, one very much hopes that the calendar flipping over to September will see box office numbers go back up.
On that note, spooky season has officially begun, and it is kicking off in a big way this coming Friday with the arrival of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (and its earned some positive word of mouth so far). Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see not only how it performs in its opening weekend but also how it shakes up the Top 10.
