Deadpool makes it two weeks as United States number 1

It’s the biggest opening weekend ever for an R-rated movie. Worldwide, “Deadpool” has grossed $491.8 million. “Deadpool”‘s total is an estimated $235.3 million since it opened. “Deadpool” has been banned in China, the world’s second-largest film market. Directed by Kevin Reynolds, the film stars Joseph Fiennes, who plays a Roman army officer investigating the mysterious disappearance of Jesus’s body. Considering we’re in the middle of Lent, it shouldn’t be too big a surprise the movie did strong business, although some would probably argue this would have done better closer to Easter.

In second place, Chinese fantasy “The Mermaid” became the highest-grossing film in the country’s history, earning $56 million.

Both of this weekend’s major newcomers succeeded largely by having very low bars to clear, which isn’t a knock on the films themselves.

Rounding out the rest 10 most-popular movies this weekend were “How To Be Single” (8.2 million dollars), “Race” (7.3 million), “Zoolander 2” (5.5 million), “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (3.8 million), “The Revenant” (3.8 million) and “Hail Caesar!”.

The drama about African-American Olympian Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 pulled in about $7.2 million. Sure, these aren’t spectacular numbers, but they never really had to be in order to satisfy their respective studios (in this case, A24 and Focus Features, respectively).

The raunchy and R-rated Ryan Reynolds superhero saga took in $55 million to claim the top spot at the domestic box office in its second weekend, leaving the pack in the dust: “Risen” took in almost $12 million and was third, while horror film “The Witch” was next with $8.6 million.

Have some fun, see a movie this week. That title is now held by The Matrix Reloaded, which grossed $742.1 million worldwide and $281.5 million domestic. According to Deadline, Sony’s (surprisingly good) entry into the Christian movie sweepstakes took 3rd place with about $11.8 million for the weekend.

This week, the field becomes more crowded with three additional new releases opening widely: Fox’s “Eddie the Eagle”, Open Road Films’ “Triple 9” and Lionsgate’s “Gods of Egypt“, which came under fire previous year after promotional posters and a trailer were released revealing that the cast consisted of primarily white people playing characters set in the African country.