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If this summer’s movie season confirmed anything for theMarvel Cinematic Universe, Deadpool is a box-office superhero. With the box-office success ofDeadpool & Wolverine,the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ has risen to an impressive place on the highest-grossing superhero movie list, with a worldwide gross of $1,287,237,740. This makes it the only R-rated superhero movie in the top 10 and helps boost it to the spot of thehighest-grossing R-rated filmof all time.
But Deadpool won’t be celebrating just yet. Despite the success,Deadpool & Wolverineisn’t quite at the level of the highest-grossing Avenger. Marvel’sSpider-Man: No Way Homeis the highest-grossing superhero film, excluding the Avengers franchise, with a worldwide gross of $1,921,847,111. This means Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy is the only superhero series to have out-grossed Deadpool. In the MCU,Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies have grossed $3,920,121,775.
The Influence of Spider-Man
This re-confirms the true power of Spider-Man as a character and one more than capable of standing apart from the Avengers. With news thatTom Holland is expected to returnforSpider-Man 4, it’s no wonder why Marvel is keen to keep their star around for more adventures. As a character, Spider-Man displays the plucky optimism and fight for goodness that captures the hearts of millions. As a movie,Spider-Man: No Way Homehad a lot of things going for it. The heavily rumored return of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire took over the internet in 2021, promising a Spider-Man team-up that fans have been wanting for decades.
Top 5 Highest-Grossing MCU Movies
Total Box Office
Avengers: Endgame
$2,797,800,564
Avengers: Infinity War
$2,048,359,754
Spider-Man: No Way Home
$1,921,847,111
The Avengers
$1,518,812,988
Avengers: Age of Ultron
$1,402,809,540
Within the MCU, Spider-Man quicklycarved out an identity for himself that evolvedalong with the character’s importance to the Avengers. Spider-Man was catapulted from backup inCaptain America: Civil Warto being transported into space inAvengers: Infinity War. Tom Holland’s web-swinger occupies a valuable place, almost acting as an audience surrogate that entered when things in the MCU were starting to get more climatic and has been on that ride ever since. He has been a small-time hero in big situations, but he still gets to be a teenager in his solo films.
9 Big Mistakes That Snuck Into Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy
In Sam Raimi’s genre-defining trilogy, there are still a few mistakes that stick out to viewers.
That balance of big and small stakes across multiple films hadn’t been seen for Spider-Man since the Raimi trilogy. Whatever the perception is of the MCU these days, Marvel has utilized Spider-Man in smart ways that have benefited their narrative arcs and the character as an individual.The character is iconic, and the MCU successfully translated that icon into a new style of franchise superhero film-making.
Why Deadpool Didn’t Beat Spider-Man
Compared toSpider-Man: No Way Home,Deadpool & Wolverineshares a few similarities. Apart from being the third in a trilogy,the two have surprisingly similar intentions. In the same way that Garfield and Maguire returned, the addition of Hugh Jackman inDeadpool & Wolverinepresentedthe same narrative challengeof bringing in other heroes whilst paying due attention to the arc of the lead superhero.
Top 5 Most Popular Marvel Characters by Total Box Office
Marvel Character
Spider-Man
$3,920,121,775
$2,855,547,801
$2,705,339,993
$2,435,016,309
$2,421,720,208
Deadpool & Wolverinehad a harder job thanSpider-Man: No Way Homein combining its characters. Wolverine was not only in his movie for longer than Garfield and Maguire, but Wolverine’s arc had ended inLogan. The two Spider-Men are realized characters in the audience’s mind, but Wolverine had tostart again inDeadpool & Wolverine, paying homage to an old version of a character whilst justifying his return.Spider-Man: No Way Homeused its Spider-Man battle in the final act, rather than trying to wholly weave its characters into the dramatic stakes of the story.
Deadpool & Wolverine Cameo Star Is ‘100%’ Ready to Return to the MCU
The crowd-pleasing Deadpool & Wolverine cameos have Marvel fans calling for the return of several original characters.
The different executions and audiences the heroes target can perhaps explain the difference in the box office. Not only is Spider-Man a more commercial character, but by Deadpool’s very nature, he is not kid-friendly, and, had the film been rated PG-13, most audiences would have been very disappointed.Spider-Man: No Way Homepromised an epic team-up, and whileDeadpool & Wolverinepromised the same thing, it had more parts to juggle and a relatively smaller audience to attract due to its R-rating.Deadpool & Wolverineis in theaters now.Spider-Man: No Way Homeis available to rent onPrime Video,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.
