In it Ryan Reynolds–Blake Lively In a box office duel, both husband and wife emerged victorious. Reynolds’ Marvel Studios hit Deadpool & Wolverine remained the top-selling film in North American theaters for a third straight week with $54.2 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. Worldwide, it has already surpassed $1 billion. (See also: Ryan Reynolds makes Blake Lively blush in surprise video, Hugh Jackman also appears and says ‘I can’t kiss him anymore’)
However, Deadpool & Wolverine was closely followed by It Ends With Us, the romantic drama starring Lively, which exceeded expectations with a stellar $50 million debut.
Together, the films created a sort of Barbenheimer family edition, in which a pair of very different movies thrived in part thanks to counterprogramming. Only this time, the opposing films starred one of Hollywood’s most famous couples. The one-two punch of the films was not entirely unprecedented. In 1990, Bruce Willis’s Die Hard 2 led the box office, while Demi Moore’s Ghost came in second.
The weekend also featured one high-priced flop. Borderlands, the $120 million video game adaptation directed by Eli Roth, opened to a paltry $8.8 million for Lionsgate. The film, which stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, was shot in 2021. After delays and reshoots, it ultimately arrived in theaters virtually dead on arrival; it earned just a 10% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and seems likely to be in the running for one of the worst movies of the year.
Meanwhile, Deadpool & Wolverine, co-starring Hugh Jackman, continued its march toward box office records. The film, directed by Shawn Levy, is only the second R-rated movie to hit $1 billion, following 2019’s Joker. Three weeks in, it’s already one of Marvel’s most lucrative releases and trails only Disney’s other big hit of 2024, Inside Out 2 ($1.6 billion worldwide) among films released this year.
Lively makes a cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine, but also stars in and produces It Ends With Us. Adapted from Colleen Hoover’s bestselling romance novel, Lively plays Lily Bloom, a Boston florist torn between two men, one from her current life (Justin Baldoni, who also directed the film) and one who was her first love (Brandon Sklenar).
It Ends With Us cost a modest $25 million to produce, so it’s set to bring in a healthy profit for co-financiers Columbia Pictures and Wayfarer Studios. Like Sony’s other female-led summer book adaptation, Where the Crawdads Sing, It Ends With Us could hold up well during the typically slower August box office period. Audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore.
Reynolds and Lively have occasionally highlighted the convergence of their films. Earlier this week, Reynolds posted a video of himself asking Sklenar questions. The timing was especially opportune, especially for Lively, whose film doubled pre-release estimates for its opening weekend.
1. Deadpool and Wolverine, $54.2 million.
2. It Ends With Us, $50 million.
3. Twisters, $15 million.
4. Borderlands, $8.8 million.
5. Despicable Me 4, $8 million.
6. Trap, $6.7 million.
7. Inside Out $2.5 million.
8. Harold and the Purple Crayon, $3.1 million.
9. Cuckoo, $3 million.
10. Long Legs, $2 million.
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