With critics mostly in love, and audiences eagerly waiting for Deadpool to grace the screen with his foul mouthed brand of justice, there's no doubt the film is this weekend's hottest ticket. But the big question of this weekend is still whether or not the Ryan Reynolds led, R-rated comic book film will live up to its pre-opening numbers. If the first seven markets are any indication, it looks like that promise will be fulfilled - and not just domestically.
The opening results out of first seven international markets that have already released Deadpool have been reported by The Hollywood Reporter, and the results are $12 million strong. Even better, certain territories have seen record breaking performances coming from the Merc with the Mouth's salty antics. In particular, Fox has seen its best opening for one of their films in Taiwan with $1.4 million, the best opening for a superhero film in Belgium with $270,000, and the biggest opening day for an R-rated film in both the Philippines and Singapore - culminating in $562,000 between the two countries. While these numbers seem like small potatoes when compared to that of the U.S. film market, there's a lot to take away from these results.
Mostly, the fact that Deadpool is a more restrictively marketed title isn't hindering it all that much in the international market. While none of these markets have censored, or worse – banned, the film, the fact that a film such as this has somehow beaten all other superhero offerings in a country such as Belgium is a particularly interesting occurrence. Again, while this result will more than likely not repeat itself in the U.S. market, it's a good indicator that Deadpool won't have as hard of an uphill climb outside of its domestic market performance as we'd thought.
However, possibly the greatest signal that Deadpool is going to kick a lot of competitive ass this weekend, is the fact that the film has bested the opening day for X-Men: Days Of Future Past in both the U.K. and France. With a budget that's not as bulky as that of a typical comic book / superhero movie, Deadpool doesn't need to try too hard to achieve success. Yet the film has indeed put in the time and effort to sell itself properly to all sorts of movie fans, and the effort looks like it's already started to pay off. With $65 - $70 million estimated for this weekend's box office debut, Wade Wilson isn't going away any time soon. In fact, he just might become the most important portion of Fox's Marvel portfolio - outside of the still popular X-Men series, of course.
Deadpool is currently unfurling in early screenings right now. If you've already seen the film, and would like to weigh in on whether you think it's got a chance to live up to the hype, leave your thoughts in the Comments below.
