Comic book movies continue to reign supreme at the box office in 2018. The newly released Deadpool 2, the sequel to 2016’s smashing success, has knocked the third Avengers movie out of the top spot. This change in ranking sees Marvel characters trading off in the box office wars, though Deadpool was released by 20th Century Fox, not Disney’s Marvel Studios like Avengers: Infinity War.
Banking on movies with an R rating can be risky, but the Deadpool movies prove that they can also be lucrative. Moviegoers turned out again for Ryan Reynolds’ hilarious and incredibly profane superhero. The sequel earned an estimated $125 million in the United States in its opening weekend, not far behind the $132 million earned by the origin film during its first weekend.
Though Avengers: Infinity War came in second at the box office this weekend, it was $16 million ahead of the third place film Book Club, starring Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton. The most recent Avengers film brought in an estimated $113 million worldwide in its fourth week of release. Since its April debut, the latest installment in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe has earned just shy of $600 million domestically and nearly $2 billion worldwide. Further, Avengers: Infinity War has cemented its place as the highest grossing superhero film in history after only one month in theaters.
Following February’s Black Panther, superhero movies appear to be the antidote to the never ending box office blues. Movie ticket sales have increased over 6% from 2017. Three of this year’s top 10 highest grossing films are based on comic book characters. Only time will tell if this trend holds up through the slate of similarly themed movies scheduled for this year, including Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp (starring Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly) and Venom (starring Tom Hardy) and DC’s much anticipated Aquaman (starring Jason Momoa).
