For all those box office naysayers who said superhero movies were dead, it’s time to change their tune– to something like “Bye Bye-Bye” or “Like a Prayer.” It was always a sure thing that “Deadpool & Wolverine” would be a huge hit, just not this huge. The Ryan Reynolds/Hugh Jackman pair-up brought in about $211 million at the domestic box office opening weekend, making it the biggest R-rated opening ever.
Funny enough, the previous record holders were its two predecessors, 2016’s original “Deadpool” and 2018’s follow-up “Deadpool 2,” at $132 million and $125 million respectively.
Reynolds, who also cowrote and produced the movie and Jackman, who reprised his Logan character for the first time since 2017, both expressed gratitude for the huge opening.
I fry myself are seeing “D&W” by watching the 2016 original again, and that was time well-spent. It was even obvious then that Reynolds had a bromance thing for Jackman as in one scene when he was unmasking himself to his girlfriend Vanessa, it was actually a mask of Wolverine.
And Leslie Uggams’ Blind Al, Wade Wilson/Deadpool’s roommate is back and better than ever with ever funnier and more profane cocaine jokes.
Much of the movie’s humor, complete with some sight gags, comes from dissing 20th Century Fox, which gave over the Marvel Cinematic Universe characters to Disney when it purchased the studio.
The film follows Deadpool asking and often begging Wolverine for his help to save Deadpool’s friends and his universe. The Shaw Levy-directed film is the first to incorporate the popular mutants since Disney’s 2019 acquisition of Fox’s entertainment assets.
Fun fact: Jackman first put on the Wolverine costume in 2000’s “X-Men.”
