I’ve always knownAvengers: Endgameis close to the highest-grossing movie of all time, but I’d never truly had perspective on just how surreal that number is until comparing theMCUfilm’s box office toDeadpool & Wolverine. The MCU’s movies haven’t been universally successful when it comes to box office results, but the franchise has consistently produced some of the highest-grossing movies of several major years, which is a major feat for any long-term cinematic series. With a considerable number ofMCU movies making over a billion dollars in their box office, Marvel’s history is a lucrative one.
Though all of these results are impressive, almost all of these releases pale in comparison to the MCU’s biggest blockbuster,Avengers: Endgame. Hailed as the pinnacle ofthe MCU timeline- and a demonstration of the heights that the superhero genre is capable of on-screen -Avengers: Endgamehas cemented itself as a movie that set an astronomically high bar for what kind of box office results the MCU could merit. As it stands, comparing this to even the franchise’s most recent major box office success highlights some interesting things that are lightly terrifying forfuture MCU movies.
Deadpool & Wolverine Has One Of The Biggest Superhero Movie Box Offices In Recent Years
With the blessing of retrospect, it’s easy to see whyDeadpool & Wolverineended up being so critically and commercially successful. The prior two Deadpool movies grossed around $700 million each in their respective worldwide box offices on the draw of an action-packed and comedy-orientated superhero romp, and combining this with bringing Deadpool to the MCU multiverse and adding in Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine (albeit a different variant to the main one fans came to love) was a natural recipe for success, especially combined with a slew of major Marvel cameos and actor returns.
However, the level of box office success the film enjoyed would still have been hard to predict with total certainty before it became reality - especially with some concerns existing before about how the film’s story would bring Wolverine back without tampering withLogan. As it stands, though,Deadpool & Wolverineis one of the most successful Marvel movies of all time, and has made more than many of the MCU’s most iconic and lucrative films as well, with its $1.3 billion worldwide box office(viaThe NumbersandBox Office Mojo) being unsurprisingly hard to top.
Currently, only the Avengers movies andSpider-Man: No Way Homehave higher worldwide box office results, which is a considerable claim given how many films that were hits in their own right end up ranking belowDeadpool & Wolverinewhen it comes to overall results from their cinematic releases. However, the scale at which the highest-grossing MCU movie’s box office beatsDeadpool & Wolverine- despite the 2024 Marvel film’s own enormous success in this regard - really puts things into perspective.
Comparing Deadpool & Wolverine’s Box Office To Avengers: Endgame’s Helps Show Just How Successful The Avengers Movie Really Was
Deadpool & Wolverinegrossing over one billion dollars is no small feat, and the fact the movie ranks in the MCU’s top six films in terms of its overall box office underlines just how impressive this really is. However, while several Marvel movies have made more than a billion dollars in their box office revenue, some have done this by a significantly wider margin than others, as is the case most notably with Avengers: Endgame.
Given the sheer impactAvengers: Endgamehad on pop culture when it released in 2019 - and the fact that it, to this day, is the movie with the second-highest worldwide gross in history - it’s obvious that the film’s financial results were solid, to say the least. However, since its success is so major, it’s easy to lose perspective on it - whereas seeing thatDeadpool & Wolverine’s impressive worldwide box office results are less than half ofAvengers: Endgame’s $2.7 billion earnings(viaThe Numbers&Box Office Mojo) really drives home just how mindbogglingly successful the fourth Avengers movie was.
The fact thatDeadpool & Wolverinewould still have fallen short ofAvengers: Endgame’s own results even in a scenario where it earned double its already noteworthy box office makes the actual monetary results ofEndgameboth more tangible, and also somewhat more staggering-feeling due to the context it puts things in. Indeed, when viewed alongside the recent trajectory for the franchise by and large, this detail makes it seem like reaching the box office heights ofAvengers: Endgameis further away than ever for future chapters of the MCU.
Avengers: Endgame’s Box Office May Genuinely Be Impossible For Future MCU Movies To Beat
After looking atDeadpool & Wolverine’s immense box office success still being under 50% ofAvengers: Endgame’s overall box office results, it feels more impossible than ever to imagine another MCU movie topping the 2019 film’s results.Avengers: Endgame’s must-see nature was built both due to the fact it was the payoff of over a decade of the MCU’s world and story-building efforts - from its very first releases in 2008 onwards - and because it ostensibly came at the peak of interest in the superhero genre and the MCU specifically, sinceAvengers: Infinity War’s cliffhanger ending built such strong audience interest.
While I don’t think it’s impossible for the MCU to build new engrossing Avengers movies, the current backdrop for the franchise means matching these heights doesn’t seem possible anytime in the immediate future.Deadpool & Wolverine’s success has been tempered by some less stellar box office results from other recent Marvel movies, andthe overarching story of the MCU in this next chapter hasn’t been as concise, leading to an overall audience that is less engaged with the franchise’s main arc and thus less likely to consider it a movie they absolutely need to see on its cinematic release.
Every Avengers movie in the MCU thus far has made over $1 billion, which is both promising for future installments in the series, and also sets a high bar forAvengers: DoomsdayandAvengers: Secret Warsalready.
There’s plenty of promise the MCU can build off to once again capture audience’s hearts, minds and wallets in the ways the franchise did previously - and indeed,Deadpool & Wolverine’s box office results show that the general public isn’t as lost on the superhero genre broadly speaking as some may have previously theorized. However, given even making a billion dollars is still $1.7 billion less thanAvengers: Endgame’s box office results, it seems mirroring or even besting the movie may rightly not be the priority for the franchise anytime soon.
