Deadpool 2 reigned supreme this weekend at the North American box office, dethroning three-time champ Avengers: Infinity War with a sizzling $125 million debut. While it’s an impressive opening, the R-rated superhero sequel came in at the lower end of expectations and failed to unseat its predecessor for the title of top R-rated opening of all time in North America.
From its opening day, the 20th Century Fox release was already making its way into the record books. Its Thursday night preview gross of $18.6 million was the highest-ever for an R-rated film (and only a shade behind more family-friendly blockbusters like The Avengers and Jurassic World), and its gross on Friday was also the highest R-rated opening day take in history, topping It‘s $50.4 million (as well as the first Deadpool‘s $47.3 million). The film’s take was boosted by an enormous screen count of 4,349, a record for both an R-rated movie and 20th Century Fox.
As standalone superhero sequels go, Deadpool 2 is somewhat unusual in that it it grossed less than the first film did in its opening weekend. It’s more typical for such sequels to surpass the opening weekend of their predecessor take by a significantly wide margin, which suggests the first Deadpool did a fantastic job of wooing its core fanbase out of the gate the first time around (and obviously they liked the results, as they mostly ended up coming back for more).
Deadpool 2 was certainly helped along by positive critical notices (it currently stands at an 84% “Certified Fresh” rating, about even with the first film), the studio’s clever, no-holds-barred marketing campaign, and excellent word-of-mouth (the Cinemascore is an “A” and its Rotten Tomatoes audience rating is 85%). That said, it was more frontloaded than the first entry, dropping a sizable 24 percent from Friday to Saturday as opposed to Deadpool‘s 10 percent. It will be interesting to see how Deadpool 2 holds up in its sophomore frame, particularly with Solo: A Star Wars Story set to drop next weekend.
Falling to second place for the first time, Avengers: Infinity War brought in an estimated $28.7 million in its fourth go-round, bringing its domestic total to a titanic $595 million. The film obviously took a sizable hit from the Merc with a Mouth this weekend, falling 53 percent, but luckily it was able to enjoy three full weekends of play with no major competitors in the marketplace. It won’t be long before the superhero blockbuster surpasses both Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($620.1 million) and the first Avengers ($623.3 million) to become the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time in North America.
More to come…
The post Studio Weekend Estimates: ‘Deadpool 2’ Blasts Into No. 1 with $125M; ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Dethroned to 2nd with $28.7M appeared first on BoxOffice Pro.
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