Deadpool 2 Sets A Record | UK Box Office Report 18th-20th May 2018
This past weekend, the UK box office welcomed the Merc with a Mouth as Deadpool 2 provided the first real test to Avengers: Infinity War’s dominance at the very top. Could the 15-rated Fox X-Men universe movie oust the more family friendly 12A Disney juggernaut? And how much did it make? Find out in our box office chart Top 5 video from the weekend of Friday 18th to Sunday 20th May 2018:
Hitting the top spot with an opening total of £12,974,669, Deadpool 2 proved it could take the more adult superhero formula into the mainstream summer blockbuster season with one of the year’s highest openings thus far, but it isn’t all good news for the fourth-wall-breaking superhero.
The hotly anticipated sequel earned its near £13million from a 5 day period which included extensive previews running from as early as Tuesday in most of the nation’s cinemas and as such posted a typical Friday-Sunday total of a much less impressive £7.72million (Infinity War earned £23.1million for the same 3-day period). Also somewhat below expectations, Deadpool 2 actually posted a box office opening of less than its predecessor, with Deadpool earning £13,729,803 in its opening weekend back in February 2016.
When compared to the openings of other superhero films released in the past few years, Deadpool 2 ranks as the following in terms of opening weekend grosses:
- Avengers: Infinity War – Apr 2018 – £23.1million
- Black Panther – Feb 2018 – £17.7million
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Mar 2016 – £14.6million
- Captain America: Civil War – Apr 2016 – £14.5million
- Deadpool – Feb 2016 – £13.7million
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – Apr 2017 – £13.1million
- Deadpool – May 2018 – £13million
- Thor: Ragnarok – Oct 2017 – £12.4million
- Logan – Mar 2017 – £11.9million
- Suicide Squad – Aug 2016 – £11.3million
- Spider-Man: Homecoming – July 2017 – £9.4million
- Doctor Strange – Oct 2016 – £9.3million
- Kingsman: The Golden Circle – Sept 2017 – £8.5million
- LEGO Batman – Feb 2017 – £7.9million
- X-Men: Apocalypse – May 2016 – £7.4million
- Justice League – Nov 2017 – £7.3million
- Wonder Woman – May 2017 – £6.2million
While the Deadpool sequel did hit a total larger than that of fellow 15-rated Fox superhero movie Logan (£11.9million), there is the feeling that Fox may have regretted moving the film from the early Spring release date that served the original film so well in 2016; a feeling that is compounded by the movie’s performance in North America, which makes for similar reading.
The North American market, which christened Deadpool with the highest grossing opening weekend of any R-rated release in history, hasn’t quite reacted to its sequel with the same level of passion, posting $125.5million in its opening weekend, an impressive figure that makes it the 2nd highest grossing R-rated opening in history but still some $7million down on Deadpool 1. The action-comedy superhero riff is, of course, facing increased competition from Avengers 3 this time around, a film from the same genre that is still playing on thousands of screens in the US and the UK respectively and is therefore eating up possible screenings for Deadpool 2. The simple equation of x amount of screens divided by Deadpool 2 + Infinity War, is clearly less advantageous than the equation of x amount of screens divided by Deadpool 2. It should also be noted that Deadpool 1 had a 4-day opening weekend and Deadpool 2 only had a 3-day opening weekend in the region.
Even with the slight drop-off in box office takings, DP2 (as it’s being promoted as) is still a whirlwind success for Fox whose $125million North American earnings more than covered the movie’s $110million production cost, making every cent they make from this day forward likely profit for the studio.
Worldwide, the picture is even more rosy for the distributors behind the X-Men franchise, as Deadpool 2 topped the worldwide opening weekend box office gross list of any film in the franchise, hitting an astounding $300million. Here are the top 5 X-Men movie openings:
- Deadpool 2 – $301,192,338
- Deadpool – $264,711,361
- X-Men: Days of Future Past – $262,866,321
- Logan – $247,444,337
- X-Men: The Last Stand – $179,012,790
Deadpool 2 posted 20th Century Fox’s all-time record for an opening weekend in what the Americans describe as the “International market” (that being every country other than the US and Canada) and broke the record for the highest opening of any R-rated movie in the same market. This, for a movie so high on dialogue and cultural references, is not only unexpected but also somewhat unprecedented and could help to change the general consensus that some movies don’t have legs abroad due to their dialogue-heavy scripts.
At number 2, Avengers: Infinity War has made another £2million here in the UK to take its overall box office total to £64million. The superhero mega-hit is now just $170million (£126.5million) away from becoming only the 4th $2billion movie of all time at the worldwide box office (behind Avatar, Titanic and Star Wars: The Force Awakens). In the UK, it seems unlikely that Infinity War will push 2017’s biggest hit Star Wars: The Last Jedi to the £80million+ mark given new competition from Deadpool 2 this past weekend and Solo: A Star Wars Story next weekend, but it should overtake fellow Disney mega-hit Beauty and the Beast (£66.5million) by the end of this week to become the 2nd biggest movie since 2016.
Elsewhere in the top 5, Sherlock Gnomes took a huge 70% drop from its debut weekend to post just £710,170 this weekend, taking its overall accumulation to £3.5million and all-but confirming it as one of the least successful mainstream animated movies in UK cinemas this year.
Here is the entire top 15 UK box office chart for the weekend of 18th-20th May 2018:
- Deadpool 2 – weeks on release: 1 – weekend: £12,974,669 – total: £12,974,669
- Avengers: Infinity War – 4 – £2,047,469 – £64,054,508
- Sherlock Gnomes – 2 – £710,170 – £3,476,582
- I Feel Pretty – 3 – £407,904 – £3,917,749
- Life of the Party – 2 – £226,704 – £1,119,197
- Blade Runner: The Final Cut – £226,058 – £3,091,006
- Breaking In – 2 – £160,272 – £775,019
- A Quiet Place – 7 – £126,334 – £11,634,986
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – 5 – £94,802 – £5,327,792
- Event Cinema: An American in Paris – 1 – £68,201 – £68,201
- On Chesil Beach – 1 – £67,017 – £67,017
- Raazi – 2 – £62,396 – £263,661
- Rampage – 6 – £60,598 – £8,793,782
- Peter Rabbit – 10 – £50,487 – £40,126,967
- Tully – 3 – £36,552 – £494,437
Outside of the top 5, the biggest news comes from a film no longer charting: The Greatest Showman. The musical starring Hugh Jackman was a member of the chart for an incredible 20 weeks, earning £46.5million and charting right up until last week despite being released in 2017.
Other than that it was a slow week, with Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982) providing the only other news of note by missing out on the top 5 chart by just over £600 despite being 36 years old. Next week we’ll have news on possibly the most intriguing release of the summer as Solo: A Star Wars Story follows hot on the heels of Deadpool 2 to spice up the top 5 and provide a real challenge to the longevity of Avengers: Infinity War. As things stand, Solo will be looking at an opening of around £6million to reach the top spot, but can it reach the heights of every other Star Wars opening under the Disney banner?
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