Marvel Studios' First R-Rated Film Hits $1 Billion, a Milestone Not Seen Since Endgame

Deadpool and Wolverine adds yet another impressive record to its already ‘hugh’ list

The Hollywood writers strike in 2023, affected all studios, resulting in a slate of movies not as rich and vibrant as the years before. The pandemic and the writers strikes have ensured that the streak of nine movies hitting the 1 billion dollar mark at the world wide box office for the first time in 2019, also remains its last. While Hollywood as a whole suffered from these factors since 2020, Marvel Studios having ended their Infinity Saga, culminating 11 years of story telling, found themselves in a place where no other studio has found itself before. After Avengers: Endgame momentarily became the highest grossing movie of all time, Marvel was and still is one of the only studios to culminate a franchise spanning 11 years and 20 plus movies in a mega-hit.

The break from 2020 to 2021 first seen as a boon for the studio, slowly showed its true colors as the pandemic affected  the quality of Marvel’s releases, just as they did the other studios. Marvel Studios went on to release content with watch time that surpassed it’s 11 year Infinity Saga, in just 3 years. The lack of quality led to the last Marvel release in November 2023 - The Marvels, failing to even reach 500 million dollars, which was a given for any Marvel Studios project. 

The studio, aware of the waning audience interest due to the quality of content, added with the fact that the actor who played the central character of this new saga was convicted, led to Marvel pushing forward their entire slate leaving only Deadpool and Wolverine for 2024. The studios' trust in the project, ultimately paid off as the Ryan Reynolds - Hugh Jackman starrer is officially the first billion dollar movie of the MCU since 2019’s Avengers; Endgame. 

The multiversal movie sees Reynolds’ Deadpool from the 20th Century Fox universe make his way into the MCU along with Jackman’s Wolverine. Deadpool happens to be one of the only characters to make the jump to the MCU, while also retaining his R-rated nature and also being Marvel’s first R-rated film. As listed on TheWrap, Deadpool and Wolverine already broke records globally to become the first R-rated film to earn more than $200 million in its opening weekend, the fourth biggest opening weekend for a superhero film and the biggest opening for its stars and director. While domestically, in America, the film broke records to become the biggest July opening ever, the sixth biggest opening of any film and the highest grossing R-rated film of all time.  

Now, that the film has surpassed one billion dollars at the global box office, it has managed to break the drought for Marvel Studios, being the first film to reach this milestone in over 4 years. 

The general reception to the film is great barring some critiques. It seems that Marvel Studios is back on track at least box office wise.