I don’t envy the Hollywood big shots tasked with reading the internet’s tea leaves to try to deduce if a movie will become a pop culture phenomenon. Sometimes loud online fan support can translate to a box office dud (remember how hyped everyone seemed to be about Snakes on a Plane?). But sometimes they land on something like Deadpool, where grassroots fan desire actually translated into global box office success. Audiences can’t get enough of the Merc with the Mouth, and Deadpool 2 has just passed its predecessor to become the highest-grossing X-Men movie of all time. Get the current franchise tally below.



Even though 20th Century Fox is about to be swallowed up by the Walt Disney Company, they must be pretty pleased with their latest Deadpool 2 box office milestone. Deadline says that the sequel’s theatrical release in China just helped to push it over the $785 million mark globally, making it the new gold standard for the X-Men film franchise. Here’s how all of the franchise entries stack up against each other at the worldwide box office, according to Box Office Mojo:

Deadpool 2: $785,986,651

Deadpool: $783,112,979

X-Men: Days of Future Past: $747,862,775

Logan: $619,021,436

X-Men: Apocalypse: $543,934,787

X-Men: The Last Stand: $459,359,555

The Wolverine: $414,828,246

X2: X-Men United: $407,711,549

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: $373,062,864

X-Men: First Class: $353,624,124

X-Men: $296,339,527

The most shocking thing about this to me isn’t that Deadpool is hugely popular – that’s been clear for years – but that somehow X-Men: First Class is the second-lowest grosser in the entire franchise. What? That movie rules! In terms of quality, it’s easily in the top three. I’m genuinely bummed out about this.

The good news for our old pal DP is that if any future entry in the X-franchise ever seems poised to topple his latest box office position, he can just use that time travel device from the end of Deadpool 2 to move through time and sabotage the film to make sure he retains the title. Wait a minute – does that answer the question of what the heck has been going on with New Mutants lately? Did we miss out on a timeline where that film outperformed Deadpool 2? Deadpool, you rascal!