While the world watched to see how Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would fare in its opening weekend, another movie quietly crept its way to box-office history. This past weekend, in its sixth week in theaters, Deadpool became the highest-grossing R-rated movie worldwide. Ryan Reynolds’ antihero passion project had a solid domestic opening of $132 million Valentine’s Day weekend, and by Easter it had raked in just south of $746 million, edging out The Matrix Reloaded, which had held the record since 2003 with $742 million.

The movie’s success has laid to rest the fears of those who believed its rating might negatively influence ticket sales. It had waffled between R and PG-13 ratings several times before landing on its final version. Now that the “Merc with a Mouth” has this record under his belt, he can set his sights on franchise domination: A sequel is already in the works, and if its predecessor is any indication, it might well boost the franchise past the billion-dollar mark.

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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com.