Ryan Reynolds’s $58m romp earned $260m in its first week and could alter Hollywood’s approach to superhero movie-making
The irreverent Ryan Reynolds superhero flick Deadpool earned $150m at the US box office over the four-day President’s Weekend – the highest opening of all time for an R-rated movie.
In a game-changing debut for a comic-book movie, (Hollywood had previously taken the view that such films need to be relatively family-friendly in order to achieve blockbuster status) Tim Miller’s film more than quadrupled its $58m production budget at the global box office, taking $260m worldwide.
Deadpool was greenlit after test footage of Ryan Reynolds as the sharp-talking, pansexual mutant was lapped up by fans on the internet. Miller’s film tells the origins story of the “Merc with a Mouth”, who enters a sinister programme that promises to save his life after he is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
He emerges scarred, though possessed of new powers of invincibility and primed to take revenge on his enemies. Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, TJ Miller and Gina Carano make up the supporting cast.The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote that: “Deadpool is neurotic and needy – and very entertaining. An innocent pleasure.”
The unexpected success of Deadpool, as well as its own scathing reviews, meant that the R-rated comedy sequel Zoolander 2 floundered at the box office, with just $15.7m on its debut in fourth place. Ben Stiller’s return to the role of the intellectually challenged male model Derek Zoolander was beaten by the Dakota Johnson/Rebel Wilson romantic comedy How to be Single, which opened with $18.8m in third. The Guardian’s Nigel M Smith described the latter as “silly and fun until it wears out its welcome,” adding: “Johnson comes out unscathed with a naturalistic performance that provides a wonderful counter to Rebel Wilson’s brazenly outlandish turn as her boozing best pal.”
The animated sequel Kung Fu Panda 3 continued to perform well in second, with $19.7m in its third week of release, for a total of $93.9m. And the top five was rounded out by the Oscars frontrunner The Revenant, which took $6.9m. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film now has $159.2m in North American box office receipts after eight weeks in cinemas.
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