Weekend projections: Deadpool & Wolverine cracking $200-million barrier this weekend

2024 has been marked by a lack of movies, and lackluster performance from those we have had. Deadpool & Wolverine is a movie that isn’t really interested in those kind of niceties though, and audiences are responding in kind, with the super hero actioner set to break the magical $200-million barrier this weekend, giving it easily the best opening weekend of 2024 so far (and very likely for the year as a whole).

Here’s how the weekend numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

Deadpool & Wolverine will be the ninth movie to earn more than $200 million over the course of a weekend, assuming it manages to come close to Disney’s projected $205 million (it’s safe to assume that the studio is being fairly conservative in its projection this morning, so it would be a surprise if the film came in under $200 million at this point, and something closer to $210 million is on the cards).

The audience is skewing fairly heavily male, with a 64%–36% male-to-female split. Disney is pointing this morning to its appeal being very diverse otherwise, at 36% Caucasian, 31% Hispanic, 17% African-American, and 17% Asian. Age wise, 6% of the audience is 13–17, 31% 18–24, 29% 25–34, 20% 35–44, 10% 45–54, and only 5% 55 and older. That final figure is a remarkable change from the 16% of the audience for Twisters last week who were 55 or older. There aren’t many grey hairs in a Deadpool audience.

The other stats that Disney is pointing to this morning is the film’s 97% positive rating on RottenTomatoes; 94% total positive score, and 70% reporting “excellent” in ComScore’s PostTrak polling; and CinemaScore’s overall “A” grade. That’s obviously an excellent result, but it might not translate into particularly strong legs given the movie’s R rating, and the pop-culture and MCU references that might not hit the mark with all viewers. Disney has clearly hit the sweet spot of finding a big audience and entertaining the heck out of them this weekend though. The challenge of bringing in a broader audience might be offset by repeat viewings in the weeks to come.

Our model is predicting Deadpool & Wolverine will end its run with $579 million domestically, based on its opening weekend. By comparison, it’s now predicting a total of $641 million for Inside Out 2. It’s early days, of course, but the difference is down to the extended legs enjoyed by the family-friendly movie. D&W could still make up the gap and more, but Inside Out 2 has the edge when it comes to expected final box office at the moment.

Internationally, Deadpool is expected to earn $233.3 million from 52 material territories this weekend, per Disney, which is about 56% ahead of the original Deadpool, and 50% ahead of Deadpool 2. That very much puts a $1-billion global haul within its sights. Top territories so far are China ($24 million), the United Kingdom ($22.1m), Mexico ($18.7m), and Australia ($13.0m). Germany, Brazil, and India are all clocking in with around $10 million.

This weekend takes the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole past $30 billion worldwide.

Understandably, the performance of Deadpool & Wolverine has taken a chunk out of earnings for most other films this weekend. The numbers already in will make this the best weekend at the box office in 2024 so far though. In fact, it’s the best weekend for theaters since the weekend of July 21, 2023, when two other cinematic icons, Barbie & Oppenheimer combined to break records of their own.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com