As a general rule, Hollywood studios tend to avoid the dreaded R rating with their big tentpole movies, because it restricts which audiences can see it. If a movie is rated PG-13, 13-year-olds and their elders can enjoy it. But if it’s rated R, every ticket-holding viewer needs to be over 17 years old (or accompanied by a very cool parent or guardian), so the studios miss out on a large chunk of the moviegoing population, especially during the lucrative summer box office window. But that doesn’t mean R-rated movies can’t bust blocks. Some of the highest-grossing movies ever made have been rated R.
In 1973, the R-rated supernatural chiller The Exorcist grossed $329,017,945. In 1990, the raunchy romcom Pretty Woman broke its record with a gross of $463,406,268. A year later, the groundbreaking effects and explosive action sequences of Terminator 2: Judgment Day earned a whopping $520,884,847. T2 held that record for over a decade before 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded broke it with a $741,847,937 gross. The Matrix sequel retained this record for slightly longer than T2 before being topped by Deadpool’s gross of $782,612,155 in 2016. Two years later, Deadpool 2 broke its own franchise’s record by about $4 million with a global box office haul of $786,470,484.
After the Merc with a Mouth broke his own box office record, it seemed like Deadpool had become the king of R-rated box office returns, and that the history of highest-grossing R-rated movies would just become a series of Deadpool movies topping each other’s worldwide figures every couple of years. And then, in 2019, Todd Phillips’ Joker came along and blew both Deadpool movies out of the box office water with an unprecedented $1 billion gross. The Joaquin Phoenix-starring psychological thriller ended up raking in $1,074,251,311. The upcoming Deadpool 3 will need more than a $4 million head-start to reclaim its title.
Deadpool In The MCU
Following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Deadpool 3 will be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although it’ll be distributed under the family-friendly Mouse House banner, the studio executives don’t want to mess with a good thing and have confirmed that the new Deadpool movie will keep the series’ traditional R rating. Shawn Levy, who previously directed Ryan Reynolds in Free Guy and The Adam Project, has been tapped to helm the Deadpool threequel. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the writers of the first two movies, are working on the script. The first Deadpool sequel barely outgrossed its own predecessor, so on paper, it seems unlikely that Deadpool 3 can break Joker’s billion-dollar record. But the extra years of anticipation waiting for Deadpool 3 paired with the promise of MCU crossovers could put the Merc with a Mouth back on top of the R-rated blockbuster mountain.
The MCU’s big Avengers team-ups easily break $1 billion at the global box office and often make it to $2 billion. But the solo movies usually struggle a little more, as they warrant fewer rewatches and some Marvel fans skip them altogether. Still, it’s not unprecedented for an MCU solo movie to crack $1 billion. Iron Man 3, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and the last two Spider-Man movies all raced past the billion-dollar mark (as did Captain America: Civil War, but that Avenger-infested epic was a solo movie in name only). All of those movies were rated PG-13, but Deadpool 3 could repeat their success with an R rating.
Reynolds’ star has only continued to rise in the years since the double whammy of Deadpool and Deadpool 2 launched him into the Hollywood stratosphere. Self-aware roles in movies like Free Guy and 6 Underground have only made fans miss Deadpool more. From whistling the Indiana Jones theme in an ancient temple to telling Dwayne Johnson to “look for the box that says ‘MacGuffin’ on it,” the lazy, on-the-nose meta riffs in Netflix’s Red Notice only served to highlight how much smarter the Deadpool movies are, and how much more they do with Reynolds’ comic talents.
Marvel Is Wisely Making Fans Wait
Along with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, and a variant of Tony Stark played by Tom Cruise, Deadpool was one of the many extra-versal superheroes expected to make a cameo appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The Doctor Strange sequel featured an all-you-can-eat buffet of superhero cameos, but ‘Pool never made an appearance. Marvel is wisely making audiences wait for Deadpool 3 to see Wade Wilson back in action. Hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait. If it is, it could leave Joker in its dust at the box office.
The tug-o’-war between the Merc with a Mouth and the Clown Prince of Crime could go on indefinitely. Even if Deadpool 3 tops Joker’s box office returns, it might get overtaken shortly thereafter by Joker’s own upcoming sequel, Folie à Deux. The Joker follow-up, recently confirmed by Phillips in a social media post, is reportedly a musical starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born remake is an R-rated musical starring Lady Gaga and it grossed $436.2 million. Imagine how much more money it would’ve made if the Joker was involved.