Deadpool is about to change the game. The movie that had to fight like hell to maintain its R rating—and we're talking about a "hard R" with plenty of graphic violence, f-bombs and nudity—closed in on making half a billion dollars globally this weekend, according to Variety, and they're not even showing it in China where it was banned.
Studios normally shy away from going R when it comes to the big-budget superhero stuff because they're scared the audience for sex, dick jokes and gore isn't large enough to make money from. Deadpool's worldwide total of $497.1 million in only two weeks blows that theory right out of the water. Of course, the movie had to be good, too, and it is.
The film brought in $55 million of that second weekend haul in North America, pushing it past Passion of the Christ and Fifty Shades of Grey to make it the fastest R-rated movie to ever reach $200 million domestically, according to CNN, which is also prediction that it won't be long before Deadpool becomes the top grossing R-rated movie of all time. Passion of the Christ currently holds that title with $611.9 million.
Some other movies came out this weekend, suffering from what's obviously horrible timing. The religious epic Risen came in third place domestically with $11.8 million, horror flick The Witch was fourth with $8.7 million, and Race, about Jesse Owens overcoming racism to run at the 1938 Olympics in Nazi Germany, was sixth with $7.3 million.
