Kicking off the ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool movie trilogy, the original ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool film had a reported budget (according to The Numbers and Box Office Mojo) of $58 million – which, without the context of what superhero movies tend to cost, is a deceptively large number. However, $58 million lands ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool in the position of having one of the lowest budgets in modern superhero movie history, with most superhero films tending to have budgets within the $100 million to $200 million mark, though in many cases this number is far higher due to the scope and scale of projects like the Avengers movies.
For example, in 2016 – the year ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool released – alone, several other superhero movies reportedly held far higher budgets. The two biggest superhero movies of the year – Captain America: Civil War and Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice – both held budgets of around $250 million respectively. While not as big in scale as this initial pair, Suicide Squad and Doctor Strange also were reported to have budgets of $160 and $175 respectively, and even Fox’s other release, X-Men: Apocalypse, had a budget that came in at $178 million.
That said, ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool‘s comparatively far lower budget makes sense, as ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s most recent film appearance before his own solo movie was Ryan Reynolds’ debut as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which held a depiction of the antihero that was much criticized for the series of major changes it made to ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool that made him a world away from the comic version. Given this prior reputation, the ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool debut movie inherently appeared to present some risks, meaning a lower budget made its creation far more feasible than it could have been otherwise.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s Budget Makes Its Box Office Even More Impressive
While ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool‘s budget was considerably lower than many of its peers in the genre, this certainly doesn’t appear to have negatively impacted its box office earnings in any way, since the film’s results hold up against many movies with a far higher budget. ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool‘s worldwide box office is reported to be between $781-782 million, which means that even if the lower side of this were true, the film overall made over ten times its own budget, which is a staggering amount of profit to consider one lone release making.
In comparison, even the genre-defining Avengers: Endgame only made around seven times its budget, with bigger blockbusters having bigger budgets that make this kind of statistic impossible. This is also true for the ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool movie series itself, with ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool 2 having a far higher budget and similar box office to its predecessor, and ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine‘s reported budget coming in at around the $200 million mark, meaning even its own over $1 billion results were still only around six times what it cost to make.
In fact, ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s overall results come close to Joker‘s own record, with the DC film costing around the $55-70 million mark, and bringing back a whopping $1 billion. Since this made Joker the most profitable comic book movie adaptation of all time (as per AV Club), the fact that ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool‘s own financial situation is close to mirroring it makes the 2016 release all the more impressive, as it cements the R-rated Marvel movie as one of the more lucrative overall releases in the already colossally successful genre.
Why ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s Budget Vs Box Office Is So Important
Following X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool, confidence in how well the character could be executed on-screen was at an all-time low, since very little of what makes ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool work as a character was included in his initial adaptation. Similarly, while experimentation in where the superhero genre could be taken was still happening in this era, this tended to be within a more family-friendly overall sphere, since ensuring as wide an audience as possible has historically helped to ensure box office results – with higher budgets necessitating this kind of approach be taken to a degree.
ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool‘s success first and foremost proved that not only was there potential in putting the Merc With A Mouth on the big screen and in full comic-accurate form, but that this potential held real commercial and critical promise that was well worth following up on. The more adult nature and rating of the film also served to underline that there was still real promise in delving into these corners of the comics for cinematic releases, encouraging further expansion in this side of the superhero genre as well, and ensuring a more varied overall approach for superhero movies was considered.
With ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s movie trilogy establishing him as one of the biggest box office draws in the superhero genre, the future certainly appears bright for any potential future follow-ups involving the character appearing on the big screen once more. With that said, the first ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool movie in the hero’s solo series will always hold a fascinating place in the annals of superhero film history, both because of its considerable success, and because of what this success meant for the future of the genre and for the character himself.
