'Deadpool' Is Already the Highest Grossing 'X-Men' Movie Domestically

The foul-mouthed, fourth-wall-breaking Marvel antihero Deadpool dominated the box office yet again over the weekend, racking up $55 million. That number pushed Deadpool beyond X-Men: Days of Future Past as the highest-grossing X-Men movie at the U.S. box office.

We now live in a world where Ryan Reynolds is a major box office boon and plays a character as beloved to fans as Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine or Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. As they say, what a time to be alive.

Deadpool had been a big gamble before it was released, and was expected only to match or slightly exceed its $58 million budget in its first weekend. Instead, it raked in a ludicrous $152.2 million over President’s Day Weekend, a record weekend gross for an R-rated movie.

After only two weeks, Deadpool has earned $235.4 million domestically, surpassing the business X-Men: Days of Future Past did in 20 weeks of release. But at $256.5 million overseas, Deadpool still sits half a billion shy of the $747.9 million Days of Future Past did the foreign box office, and hasn’t had the added boost of being released in China. It was banned in the burgeoning movie market due to (allegedly) excessive violence, nudity, and a whole mess of f-bombs.

With another $255 million, Deadpool will hold the worldwide record for X-Men movies.

“It’s one of those times where a movie becomes a touchstone in culture,” Chris Aronson, Fox’s domestic distribution chief, told Variety. “It just becomes part of the zeitgeist and one of those movies you just have to see. That’s due to its uniqueness. People have never seen anything like this before.”

Yes, it’s true, people haven’t seen anything like this before, but should they see something like this? It depends on your outlook on comic book movies. Deadpool tried something new, which was refreshing. But that doesn’t mean we need a million new comic book movies exactly like Deadpool. For now, there’s nothing quite like it.