‘Deadpool 2’ earned $301 million across the world over its first weekend.
The 20th Century Fox sequel – based on the beloved and edgy Marvel Comics character – has proven to be a huge hit with audiences across the globe.
As reported by Variety, it pulled in $125m in the US alone, with an international haul of $176m – even without a boost from China, where the movie appears unlikely to get a release.
The figures make it not only the best ever overseas opening for Fox International, but it has also toppled ‘Logan’ ($160 million) as the biggest international opening for an R-rated film. According to Forbes, “Avengers: Infinity War suffered no superhero fatigue or frontloading over its debut weekend. Current estimates have it just over the $247.96 million opening weekend of Star Wars.”
Its huge success comes as it has been revealed the makers of the movie cut a post-credits scene because they considered it inappropriate.
Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have revealed they’d shot a scene in which the character – who is played by Ryan Reynolds – was seen killing a baby version of Adolf Hitler, but they performed a U-turn after screening the scene to an audience.
Rhett explained: “Deadpool goes back and kills baby Hitler at the very end. That’s what was supposed to happen.” Paul added: “And not just supposed to happen, we shot it.”
However, when the duo put their controversial post-credits scene in front of an audience, they had a last-minute change of heart and decided to remove it from the superhero film.
Speaking to Uproxx, Rhett explained: “We shot it and we put it in front of an audience. He’s got the crib and he’s standing in the German nursery and he’s leaning over the crib to do it and there was kind of this, ‘Ohhhhh.’ And we thought we don’t want to leave the crowd on an, ‘Ohhhhh.’ So it ended up coming out.”
Looking back on the scene, Rhett now admits to feeling “squeamish” about their idea.
He said: “Our last moment was Deadpool saying ‘Maximum effort!’ as he goes in to throttle the baby. It does make you squeamish.”
