ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine is one of the biggest movies of all time, but I’m still shocked to compare its success to that of another Marvel Universe film that Fox released in 2020. The fact that the box office for ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine was over 28 times the total worldwide gross of this other X-Men film is astonishing. However, looking at the details of both films, there are quite a few reasons why their grosses were so disparate. Understanding those differences can help frame ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool 3‘s success in an interesting light.

While Fox’s X-Men movies were generally well-received, it is surprising to look back and see how many films the studio actually released over their entire run. Including ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, the X-Men franchise put out a total of 14 films, including spin-offs and reboots with a new cast. However, it is actually the strangest and riskiest of these films that became the lowest-grossing. This was a disappointing result for the studio, but the final box office for the film makes sense when considering several contributing factors.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine’s Critical & Box Office Success Marked A Major Victory For Superhero Movies

The Film Scored 98% With Audiences On Rotten Tomatoes And Made Well Over A Billion Dollars

Before ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine was released, I wasn’t sure if it would be a success. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the film would be a huge hit, but superhero films have suffered at the box office in recent years, and the popularity of the X-Men franchise had waned significantly. However, audiences were actually interested in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, with the film beating even the most respected X-Men movie of all time at the box office and becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever.

Surprisingly, the third film was actually a huge upswing in the ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool trilogy. ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine made $1.3 billion at the box office, destroying even the most optimistic box office projections. This was a major victory for the X-Men, the MCU, and, of course, for ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool himself. While the Marvel franchise has been more hit or miss as of late, the success of the film clearly showed that audiences still care about the franchise, and still wish to see more superhero movies in the future from Marvel, so long as they’re good.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine’s Box Office Results Are Even More Staggering Compared To Fox’s Lowest-Grossing X-Men Movie

The New Mutants Made Only $47 Million Worldwide

Perhaps part of my reluctance to believe in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine was because of the poor financial reception to The New Mutants, the last X-Men film released before it. The Fox movie saw a new set of mutants in a small, unusual setting that was originally conceived of as a horror movie. The resulting film, directed by Josh Boone, felt like an unusual mix of fantasy, horror, and action. Featuring characters like Sunspot, Magik, and Wolfsbane, it was a failure at the box office, grossing only $47,535,251.

I like The New Mutants more than most, but it is certainly a messy movie. The New Mutants team was made up of characters, and even performers, that could shine if they had been used in the MCU. Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik remains a fan favorite, and there is some level of hope that the actor could return as the character sometime in the future. Unfortunately, due to the response to The New Mutants, I’m doubtful that anything like this could ever occur, especially when contrasted against ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool 3‘s success.

Why ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine’s Box Office Is Worlds Away From The New Mutants

The Conditions And Expectations For Each Marvel Film Were Different

The X-Men film New Mutants had a fumbled release, and seems to have been lost in the shuffle when Fox sold to Disney in 2019. When this occurred, it was reported that there were planned reshoots. The film was shelved until those were set to be completed. Apparently, this never happened, and the movie received an unusual release when movie theaters first began to open in summer 2020, during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Much of this, as well as there being little spent on promotion, and a 36% Rotten Tomatoes critic score, likely contributed to the film’s failure.

Disney needed ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine to be a success, and they worked hard to make that happen. The film was beloved, it was packed full of Marvel Easter eggs and cameos, and it was released at a time when theaters were doing much better. The movie brought back two of the most beloved X-Men characters and provided a fun, emotional look back at the entire history of Fox’s superhero films. The movie hit all the right notes and connected in all the right ways, becoming a huge success.

Many factors contribute to the success or failure of any movie, and it’s much easier to see how all the conditions worked out right in hindsight. ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine was an excellent addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while The New Mutants was disappointing to most. However, the factors that led to their respective success and failure are much more complex than just that. Hopefully, the characters from The New Mutants will be given another chance to shine in the MCU soon.

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