‘Deadpool 3’ Box Office Prediction: Will the Only 2024 MCU Movie Cross the One-Billion Mark?

Things haven’t exactly been great for the superhero genre in the post-pandemic era. With only a handful of successful exceptions, most Marvel and DC movies flopped historically badly at the box office, with many claiming superhero fatigue is to blame. Still, ‘Deadpool 3’ is expected to be a smash hit, and it’ll be the only MCU movie released in 2024. Knowing the state of the industry overall, will ‘Deadpool 3’ finally be the one MCU film to break the $1 billion mark in years? Here are our predictions.

Marvel and DC’s recent box office results

At their peak, Marvel and DC movies broke $1 billion so regularly that it was somewhat expected. However, if you look at the recent numbers, even breaking half of that is not that often the case, and we’ve seen some historic flops from both Marvel and DC.

After ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home,’ none of the films from both franchises went over $1 billion, with only a handful of outliers that earned more than $500 million. After ‘Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness’ almost hit the mark with $955 million, things started going downhill a bit.

‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ somewhat underperformed with nearly $761 million, while ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ did as well as you could’ve hoped for with a nice $859 million. ‘Eternals’ kind of broke even with $400 million, while ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ made only a bit more with $432 million despite having much more favorable reviews.

‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ was the first larger box office disappointment for the MCU with a $476 million return, followed by the historically worst MCU movie in ‘The Marvels.’ Despite having a nice cast of superheroes, the movie racked up only $206 million in total.

Sony’s Marvel movies underperformed as well. ‘Venom 2’ followed its 2019 smash-hit predecessor with a solid but underwhelming $507 million, but the biggest bust in recent memory was Jared Leto’s ‘Morbius’ which had horrible reviews and only a $167 million box office return.

Still, there have been outliers that showed the genre is still alive – it’s just that the audience became much pickier. ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,’ for instance, smashed expectations with $845 million, and we’ve already mentioned ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.’

The most welcome surprise in recent memory was certainly ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.’ I mean, it wasn’t a major surprise, considering the first film was an Academy Award-winning movie, but the animated flick racked up an impressive $690 million on a $150 million estimated budget. 

Recent DC films’ box office returns

On the other hand, DC had its fair share of flops over recent years. And, it’s not just the box office returns – it’s the reviews, too. ‘Shazam 2’ followed a major-hit first movie with a horrifying $134 million on a $125 million budget while ‘Black Adam’ bombed with $393 million on a nearly-$200 million budget.

And we haven’t even talked about the worst two yet. ‘The Flash’ somehow managed to give us Michael Keaton’s Batman again and still be the biggest DC flop in recent history with $271 million on a $200 million budget, while ‘Blue Beetle’ did just as poorly with $130 million on an estimated $104 million budget.

That being said, the non-DCEU films saved DC movies over the past couple of years. ‘Robert Pattinson’s ‘The Batman’ is a major hit that earned $772 million worldwide, and expects an equally successful sequel in 2025, while ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ is expected to follow a spectacular 2019 first movie that earned well over $1 billion.

General box office predictions for 2024

The truth of the matter is, that many films and franchises in recent years faced major disappointment at the box office, not just superhero films. Disney, for instance, had several weak films in a row in terms of box office returns, like ‘Elementals’ and ‘Wish.’ It’s hard to make a highly profitable film nowadays.

Perhaps that’s why both Marvel and DC decided to take a little break in the tempo with which they get movies out. Marvel will have four movies out in 2024, but only one will be a part of the MCU, whereas DC will literally have only a single movie in 2024, and it isn’t a part of James Gunn’s DCU.

Seeing how poorly ‘The Marvels’ performed despite being a follow-up to a very successful ‘Captain Marvel’ and having a star-studded female superhero cast, it’s hard to imagine that ‘Madame Web’ will do any better than poorly, too. In fact, one can expect it to perform even weaker in box office returns, even if it has favorable reviews.

Tom Hardy’s ‘Venom 3’ might surprise us again with a formidable profit, seeing that both previous Venom films earned over half a billion, but I firmly believe that ‘Kraven the Hunter’ will surprise everyone and earn a nice profit. The thing is, the character grew quite a bit popularity-wise due to the recent smash-hit video game, ‘Spider-Man 2.’

On DC’s front, the only movie we’re getting this year is ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ – the sequel of the 2019 mega-hit with Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck as the Clown Prince of Crime. You can expect a major hit at the box office again. It might not be as successful as the first film, but it will certainly go for well over $500 million.

Now that we know all those numbers and predictions for the year, what about the fourth Marvel (and the only MCU) movie of 2024? Will ‘Deadpool 3’ finally be the one movie in the post-COVID era for Marvel to break that elusive $1 billion mark?

Will ‘Deadpool 3’ break $1 billion?

Despite all of this information we have in recent years and the failure of most superhero films, ‘Deadpool 3’ isn’t just another superhero film. Many, many factors play a key role in everyone’s belief that the film will kill at the box score and almost certainly blast over the $1 billion mark. I’m here to break down those factors for you.

Firstly, the fact that 2024 won’t be oversaturated with a ton of MCU or DCU films means that there’s less competition, meaning there will be more anticipation for the few projects that are coming out, like ‘Deadpool 3’ that we have been waiting for a long time.

SAG-AFTRA strikes certainly played a key role in the push of several projects to 2025 and beyond, but seeing how long the hype for ‘Deadpool 3’ is, and how popular it already is on social media, it’s hard to think that Wade Wilson’s MCU introduction won’t be a massive hit.

Not to mention that yet another iconic character is getting a major comeback and an MCU introduction – it’s Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, who’ll co-star with Reynold’s Deadpool in the film. Get those guys in separate films, they’re certain to make a profit. Put them together, and, well, you have a hit on your hands – especially when you know the friendship and chemistry between Hugh and Ryan.

Additionally, both previous Deadpool films were a huge success, amassing $783 and $786 million a piece, respectively. Combine that with the fact that Merc With a Mouth and Logan are both making a comeback – for the first time in an MCU film – and they’re the only MCU film in 2024, and you have a great recipe for success.

Take everything with a grain of salt, though, because if the movie is not good, you can toss all that in the trash. If it’s any good, ‘Deadpool 3’ will easily break the $1 billion mark. Not that I doubt it will be awesome, but if, in some wild case, it turns out subpar, there’s almost no chance that the film doesn’t make at least $600-800 million.

(*all the box office numbers have been taken directly from each movie’s IMDb page, respectively)

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