Bigger than Jesus? Well, the box office numbers show that Deadpool officially is...for now.
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00:00Bigger than Jesus? Well, the box office numbers show that Deadpool officially is, for now.
00:06Nobody ever got in trouble for comparing themselves to Jesus' popularity before, right?
00:12We meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion, at that time. I wasn't knocking
00:17it or putting it down, I was just saying it."
00:20Well, so far, at least Deadpool's faring better than John Lennon in that regard.
00:24It turns out the world hasn't tired of the merc with the mouth spouting R-rated,
00:27fourth-wall-breaking metatextual filth. Now in its second week in theaters,
00:31Deadpool and Wolverine is still having a great old time at the box office,
00:35raking in an incredible $395 million on the domestic market, making it the biggest R-rated
00:41movie in U.S. cinema history. In hitting this benchmark, Marvel Studios' prayers have been
00:46answered. Wade Wilson and Logan's road trip has taken the esteemed record away from the
00:51Son of God himself. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ has officially lost the number
00:56one spot it held for the last 20 years. The actor-director's harrowing adaptation of the
01:0112 hours leading to Jesus' crucifixion left theaters with $370 million when it was released
01:07in 2004. Now, with Marvel's superhero road trip in the top spot, The Passion of the Christ is
01:12in second place, just ahead of the original Deadpool, which earned just over $363 million
01:18at the domestic box office in 2016. It's an impressive achievement for a
01:22threequel spawned from what might be the riskiest comic book movie franchise in history,
01:26but should come as no surprise given that Wade himself made a nod to all this in Deadpool 2.
01:31During an escape with Dopinder in that movie,
01:33the assassin revels in being named in the same sentence as Jesus himself.
01:38"'Passion of the Christ,' then me. At least domestically. We beat them overseas,
01:42where there's no such thing as religion."
01:44The movie's writers considered that joke one of its riskiest, but perhaps not for the reasons
01:48you would expect. In the commentary track, Rhett Reese, who co-wrote all three movies, said,
01:53"'It's a risky joke because it could have gone either way.
01:56We'd have to change it if something else came along.'"
01:58That's right. The risk wasn't the sacrilege,
02:01but the chance that another movie could swoop onto the list. Thankfully, nothing did.
02:06"'I'm the Messiah. I am Marvel Jesus.'"
02:13But while Wade may have broken a 20-year record, there's a chance that the superhero's recent
02:17success might be overtaken by Gibson's next biblical epic. It took six years for a follow-up
02:23to Deadpool 2 to hit screens, but Gibson's long-rumored Passion of the Christ sequel
02:27has been decades in the making. Rumors of a 2025 release date for Passion of the Christ
02:32Resurrection were stirring online in 2023, but since then, nothing has been nailed down.
02:37The only significant update came from Gibson himself,
02:40who revealed in a 2023 interview that he was choosing between two script options.
02:45"'And one of them is very structured and a very strong script
02:49and kind of more what you'd expect, and the other is like an acid trip.'"
02:54Gibson added that the second script goes into other realms, including Hell,
02:58and involves falling angels. The director also assured those awaiting the sequel that
03:02Jim Caviezel will reprise his role as Jesus in a return to what was one of the actor's
03:06most demanding performances. Playing the Son of God even saw the actor suffer the rare injury
03:12of being struck by lightning during filming. Should the production come to pass, it might
03:16mark yet another round in the fight for box office supremacy between Deadpool and the
03:20non-Marvel Messiah, which is a sentence we never thought we'd say out loud.
03:24That said, the international box office listings are a whole different story.
03:28The Passion of the Christ sits at the 10th spot on that list, well below all three Deadpool movies.
03:33Deadpool and Wolverine has yet to surpass the top two there — Joker and Oppenheimer.