Logan Claws Its Way To The Top Of The Box Office

UPDATE: The international numbers are now in and the film has earned $152.5 million overseas, making its worldwide opening weekend total a staggering $237.8 million.

As expected, James Mangold’s Logan has clawed its way to the top of the box office this weekend, drawing in an estimated $85.3 million, domestically. Though that doesn’t put it ahead of Deadpool, which opened to a whopping $132 million, it’s still incredibly impressive for an R-rated comic book movie, especially one that strays so far from what we usually see in the genre.

Aided by glowing reviews and a promo for Deadpool 2, the film soared from the moment it debuted on Thursday night, packing theaters throughout the weekend. While international numbers haven’t rolled in just yet, analysts are pointing to around $75-$100 million overseas, which could potentially put Logan close to $200 million by the time Monday morning arrives. That’d be a huge number for the threequel and one that ought to make Fox executives very happy, especially as they’ve now had two R-rated superhero hits.

Furthermore, it also proves that comic book movies, and even big blockbusters in general, don’t always have to be PG-13 to be profitable. An R-rating can be applied and still bring in money for the studio, even with a significant portion of the audience cut off. Hopefully, this will spark a new trend in Hollywood and fans will start to see more mature superhero movies coming down the pipeline. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the PG-13 fare that Marvel and DC put out, but there’s no doubt that some viewers are growing tired of it.

Elsewhere at the box office, Get Out continues to do well for itself, raking in $26.1 million, while The Shack, which found itself with less than favourable reviews, earned $15.1 million. The LEGO Batman Movie and John Wick: Chapter 2 also landed in the top five with $11.6 and $4.7 million, respectively.

Circling back to Logan, though, and it seems that Mangold’s film now holds a few records, becoming the biggest R-rated launch ever for March and the fourth-biggest debut of the month ever as well. That’s particularly impressive when you consider that it didn’t even open on a long weekend, like most of the other top grossing R-rated debuts did (Deadpool, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc.).

With extremely positive word of mouth and fans eager to check the film out for a second time to catch all the easter eggs they might of missed, it doesn’t seem like Logan will be slowing down over the next few weeks. It might mark Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart’s final outing with the franchise, but they’ve clearly gone out on top, delivering one of the best movies the genre has ever seen and one that people will be talking about for some time to come.