We live in a box office culture where it often feels like it's all just about superhero movies beating out other superhero movies - and this weekend that's exactly what happened. Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Infinity War has been king ever since its release back on April 27th, but now David Leitch's Deadpool 2 has arrived - and while it is definitely geared way more towards adults, that didn't stop it from having a stellar opening and grabbing the number one spot. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!
The first Deadpool had a comfortable, spacious release date being released in mid-February 2016, but Deadpool 2 performed quite well in the much more competitive summer season. The new movie made less in its first three days than its predecessor ($125 million vs. $132 million), but there's nothing to scoff at here. It's now the second biggest R-rated opening in history, successfully beating the $123.4 million that was made by Andres Muschietti's IT last fall,and it actually had the biggest opening day for any R-rated blockbuster ever, making an amazing $53.3 million on Friday alone. When you factor in foreign sales, the feature has made over $300 million already on a reported $110 million budget.
As I've mentioned in this column for weeks, the huge question mark is what kind of legs we can expect from it. Deadpool 2 was initially set to come out the first weekend of June, which would have made Gary Ross' Oceans 8 and Brad Bird's The Incredibles 2 its big competition in weeks two and three, respectively... but then that changed. Instead, now the film has Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story to compete with in its second weekend, and that's definitely not ideal. The Merc With The Mouth is riding high on an "A" CinemaScore, and has received better reviews from critics than the Han Solo feature, but this is Star Wars we're talking about. Everyone is going to want to see it just so they can have their own opinion on it, and that's going to steal a lot of attention away from Deadpool 2.
As far as counter-programming goes, Bill Holderman's Book Club made for textbook competition against Deadpool 2 - and did about as well as expected. The film was marketed on the appeal of its fantastic four leads - Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen - and it managed to bring in a decent audience and $12.5 million in sales. Critics gave it mostly mixed reviews, leaving it to fall just short of being called "Fresh" on the Tomatometer, but movie-goers seem to be digging it based on the "A-" CinemaScore. This film was never going to set the world on fire, but by the end of its run it will probably have a satisfactory final total.
The future is probably a bit less bright for Raja Gosnell's Show Dogs, which was the the third and final wide release to hit theaters this weekend. Gosnell is known for these CGI/live-action family films, making movies like Scooby-Doo and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, but this film represents his second worst opening ever (number one is still 1997's Home Alone 3 - the sequel that didn't star Macaulay Culkin). This one chose a pretty terrible time to come out, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was gone from the Top 10 within two weeks.
As mentioned, next time around we have Solo: A Star Wars Story, which should be an interesting disruptor . We'll see how things shake out next Sunday!
