Box Office Report for the Week of August 11

Well, it’s official. Deadpool & Wolverine is now the second film released this year to cross the $1 billion mark, after Inside Out 2. It’s also the second Disney film of the year to reach that milestone, though one wonders if another one will go just as big as these two films. Mufasa: The Lion King seems like the strongest bet, as it’s released during the Christmas corridor and is the follow-up to one of Disney’s highest-grossing pre-COVID movies.

Interestingly enough, Deadpool & Wolverine is only the third post-Endgame MCU film to reach the billion-dollar mark, after Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home. It should also put a dent in the fact that superhero fatigue is a widespread phenomenon. If studios make compelling films, audiences will see them. After a slew of mediocre outings from Marvel Studios, Deadpool & Wolverine felt like a breath of fresh air for audiences, which is why it became such a widespread success.

At number two this weekend is It Ends with Us, which stars Ryan Reynolds’ wife, Blake Lively. This is the first time since Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2: Die Harder and Demi Moore in Ghost that a husband/wife duo share the top two films at the box office. It’s also a massive success for Sony, raking up a $50 million opening over a $25 million budget. Globally, the film made over $80 million, and will likely leg out over the next few weeks, as Deadpool & Wolverine will also continue its momentum.

But one can’t say the same for Eli Roth‘s Borderlands, which has pitifully bombed at the box office. With a reported budget of $115 to 120 million, the film only made $8.8 million at the domestic box office and even worse in international markets, with $7.7 million, totaling a global cume of $16.5 million. Ouch. There are only a few positive reviews of the movie, which contains an abysmal 9% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the very worst scores for a video game adaptation ever.

The movie was doomed to fail from the start after a troubled post-production process led to two weeks of reshoots directed by Deadpool‘s Tim Miller. The result is, just like 2017’s Justice League, a conflict of two visions by vastly different filmmakers. Moreover, screenwriter Craig Mazin asked to take his name off the screenplay after massive changes were made to it by Roth and co-writer Joe Crombie. Not even a star-studded cast could’ve saved the project if they tried. Here’s hoping a reboot in a few years from now (by a different filmmaker) could steer an attempt at readapting it in a better direction, but it could be the biggest flop of the year by a country mile.

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. Deadpool & Wolverine (Disney): $54.2M (-44%) – 4,330 theatres
2. It Ends with Us (Sony): $50.0M – 3,611 theatres
3. Twisters (Universal): $15.0M (-34%) – 3,664 theatres
4. Borderlands (Lionsgate): $8.8M – 3,125 theatres
5. Despicable Me 4 (Universal): $8.0M (-30%) – 3,009 theatres
6. Trap (Warner Bros): $6.7M (-56%) – 3,181 theatres
7. Inside Out 2 (Disney): $5.0M (-27%) – 2,200 theatres
8. Harold and the Purple Crayon (Sony): $3.1M (-48%) – 3,325 theatres
9. Cuckoo (NEON): $3.0M – 1,503 theatres
10. Longlegs (NEON): $2.0M (-53%) – 1,310 theatres

Source: Comscore