‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Sets Box Office Record for R-rated Movies

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Aug 17, 10:30AM EDT · Published Aug 17, 9:12AM EDT

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‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Sets Box Office Record for R-rated Movies — © Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

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The improbable pairing of two superheroes has set the record for R-rated movies.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is a significant win for Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS | DIS Price Prediction).
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The improbable pairing of two superheroes has set the record for R-rated movies at $1.085 billion. It comprises $516.8 million in domestic sales and $568.8 million from international ticket sales. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is a significant win for Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), which has suffered through several quarters of poor earnings. Poor studio performance was part of the problem.

The formula for the movie could help Disney in the future. An R-rating is never associated with films based on Marvel heroes. “It’s important to remember that the rating was organic and necessary for the characters. That’s helped audiences and fans respond so favorably,” Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory, told CNBC.

Deadpool is a troubled antihero, and Wolverine is among the most powerful members of the X-Men franchise. Disney has meshed together characters from two extremely different Marvel genres. What is known as the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” is the top-rated franchise of all time, according to Box Office Mojo. Its total U.S. and Canada ticket sales sit at $11.8 billion.

A hugely positive audience reaction probably helped drive ticket sales. The “Deadpool & Wolverine” audience rating is 95% at the Rotten Tomatoes movie review site.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.