“Deadpool and Wolverine” Eyes Historic Opening in Nigeria As It Lights Up Global Box Office

Disney and Marvel’s latest blockbuster, “Deadpool and Wolverine,” has made quite an entrance into the box office both domestically and internationally.

Released on July 26, the R-rated film has dominated the Nigerian box office, earning over ₦115 million in its first three days. This number includes ₦20 million from Wednesday and Thursday previews, ₦41 million on its opening day Friday, and ₦51 million on Saturday.

With the weekend numbers still being finalized by the Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN) as of July 28, box office predictions suggest that the movie’s 5-day weekend gross will likely surpass N145 million, with over 26,000 tickets sold. This performance would position the Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman team-up as the third biggest opening of all time in Nigeria.

In other markets, “Deadpool and Wolverine” is, without mincing word, simply crushing it.

Despite facing off against heavyweights like “Inside Out 2” and “Despicable Me 4,” the movie debuted globally with a 5-day haul of $440 million across 52 markets. Comprising of $205 domestic and $233 million overseas, the movie bested “Batman v Superman’s colossal 2016 opening of $422 million to become the 12th biggest opening of all time.

In the US, its $205 million domestic gross is the 8th largest opening ever, and it marks the first R-rated film to achieve a $200 million+ opening weekend

Box office tracker, Luiz Fernando, projects that the movie may surpass the 20-year record held by “The Passion of the Christ” ($370 million) as the highest-grossing R-rated movie in the US in as little as two weekends.

With a 98% audience score and 81% critic score on review-site, Rotten Tomatoes, and a momentum that should see the movie race past the $786 million gross of its predecessor, “Deadpool 2” by next weekend, the future looks bright – too bright even – for Disney’s latest brotherhood project.

If it maintains such legs, then it would have little trouble eclipsing the $1.07 billion record of “Joker” (2019) as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, although the latter was much cheaper to produce and thus yielded more profit.