‘Deadpool’ dominates again with $55 million in 2nd week

The film grossed an estimated $55 million this weekend to bring its total domestic cume to $235 million.

Still, Deadpool’s monster second weekend was enough to crack the movie into the all-time top 10 for R-rated movies at the box office. That film had almost 70% of its ticket sales from global audiences (most blockbusters have about 60% or higher), where “Deadpool” is much lower at 52%. The J.J. Abrams-directed film has now earned $921.6 million domestically and $1.118 billion internationally for a worldwide box office total of $2.039 billion.

First, let’s look at Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, which is under the aegis of Disney. Passion spent eight weeks in theaters before it reached $350 million, and then spent another eight weeks scratching its way past $370 million.

“Risen”, a take on the resurrection of Jesus through the eyes of a Roman military tribune, stars Joseph Fiennes and is expected to earn $8.5 million for Sony Corp.’s SNE, -1.37% film studio, according to analysts at Box Office.

However, the big story outside of “Deadpool” belongs to A24, who boldly put “The Witch” into wide release, and saw their nifty marketing campaign pay off big, with the arty horror movie earning $8.6 million.

In 2nd, 3rd and 4th place we have Chinese movies The Mermaid with $122.3 million, The Monkey King 2 with $42.2 million and From Vegas to Macau III with $39 million. That means that Deadpool has already passed up X-Men: Days of Future Past’s $233.9 million domestic total in just 10 days. “Risen” took in $4 million on Friday and is expected to hit up to $12 million in its debut weekend. The film also benefited from terrific reviews (88 percent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) and an endorsement from author Stephen King, who said it “scared hell out of him”.

In second place, the animated “Kung Fu Panda 3” was on track for a 12.5 million dollars weekend. Consumers handed the picture a C-minus CinemaScore rating. A24 acquired “The Witch” out of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival with DirecTV for roughly $1 million, and planned a multi-platform release that would match a limited theatrical debut with a speedy on-demand launch, but the studio rethought that idea after screening the picture.

Going after adults this weekend was the Jesse Owens biopic, Race, which debuted to a subdued $7.3 million-plus from 2,369 locations.