With 'Deadpool & Wolverine,' Ryan Reynolds could finally end Marvel's superhero slump

With the box office success of "Deadpool & Wolverine," Ryan Reynolds just might usher in a new and improved era for the beleaguered superhero genre.

• "Deadpool & Wolverine" is the only MCU film coming out this year.
• The film is already a box office hit, earning $438 million globally in its opening weekend.
• The Ryan Reynolds-led franchise could be the key to combatting mounting superhero fatigue.

In an early scene in "Deadpool & Wolverine," Ryan Reynolds' Wade Wilson/Deadpool accepts an enticing offer to save the "sacred timeline" — aka the perfect, Marvel Cinematic Universe one — and proclaims, "I am Marvel Jesus."

The line is treated as a recurring joke in the film, but perhaps it has some weight. With the movie's already massive box-office success, Reynolds just might be the Marvel Cinematic Universe's messiah, ushering in a new and improved era for the beleaguered superhero genre.

Since releasing the blockbuster ensemble film "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019, Marvel has had its fair share of triumphs ("Spider-Man: No Way Home," "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3") and missteps ("Eternals," "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"). Mixed results combined with an oversaturation of Marvel TV series on Disney+ resulted in diminishing quality and waning fan interest — until Marvel finally pumped the breaks in 2023, vowing to focus less on volume and more on making each new MCU offering special and unique.

"Deadpool & Wolverine," costarring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, is the only MCU film hitting theaters this year. The film serves as a litmus test for Marvel's new quality-over-quantity approach. It's also the first "Deadpool" movie released as part of the MCU following the 2019 Disney-Fox merger.

While it might seem risky for the studio conglomerate to put all its eggs into one R-rated basket, Reynolds' Deadpool franchise — and Reynolds himself — are uniquely positioned to revitalize the genre.

The 'Deadpool' franchise has been consistently lucrative

Though the last decade of Marvel movies has encompassed both hits and misses, Reynolds' "Deadpool" movies have all been major box office victories.

In 2016, the first stand-alone "Deadpool" movie landed an 85% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $782 worldwide. The 2018 sequel saw similar success, with an 84% critics' score and a gross of $785 globally.

"Deadpool & Wolverine" is performing just as well, if not better. It racked up $205 million at the domestic box office this weekend, the eighth-biggest opening of all time and the biggest R-rated opening weekend ever (it dethroned the original "Deadpool" for that honor). Globally, it's already made $438 million.

At the time of this article's publication, the movie has a 79% critics' score and 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

This all bodes well for Marvel.

Marvel is risk-averse — but Deadpool has become a known quantity that audiences still find exciting

In the past, Marvel movies that strayed from the traditional superhero formula haven't been well-received. Sam Raimi's horror-indebted "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" received mixed reviews, while Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao's polarizing "Eternals" became the lowest-rated MCU film (that is, before "Quantumania" took its spot with a critics' score of 46% on Rotten Tomatoes).

The studio conglomerate has historically been risk-averse, and recent controversies have only heightened that response. Marvel's bet on Jonathan Majors, who made appearances in the Disney+ series "Loki" and "Quantumania" and was set to become the MCU's next overarching villain, Kang the Conqueror, in the next Avengers film, turned sour when the actor was found guilty of assault and harassment in December 2023. Marvel dropped him and pivoted to embrace a beloved actor who was instrumental in the MCU's early success: Robert Downey Jr. He'll play the iconic villain Doctor Doom in the renamed "Avengers: Doomsday."

While it would stand to reason that the Deadpool franchise, with its foul-mouthed protagonist, R rating, and deliberately self-referential in-jokes, would register as too "different" to succeed, box-office numbers and the franchise's fervent fan base have proven that isn't the case.

The original "Deadpool" may have been considered a risk to get made — it took Reynolds 11 years to get the character onscreen — but at this point, the franchise has proven it's safely bankable. What makes Deadpool different is that while the character and tone are consistent enough that Hollywood bigwigs know what they're getting when they greenlight a Deadpool movie, the raunchy content never registers as "safe" to viewers — even if, to some degree, it is.

Ryan Reynolds' business acumen has helped Deadpool thrive

The benefit of developing a character for more than a decade is a true clarity of vision. Reynolds' crystal clear grasp of the character, plus his creative oversight as an executive producer and business-minded approach, have made him an ideal steward for all things Deadpool.

He's perhaps the only Marvel star who's also a gifted ad man — his production company, Maximum Effort, creates content for many of Reynolds' investments, including Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile, and Welsh football team Wrexham AFC — making him uniquely positioned to sell the hell out of his own movie.

And sell he did. In addition to making the standard press stops like late-night talk shows and San Diego Comic-Con, Reynolds leaned into the more fun and unexpected interview concepts and press opportunities, like going on the often-viral web series "Hot Ones" and "Chicken Shop Date." His good friend Taylor Swift even wrote a gushing post on her Instagram Stories about "Deadpool & Wolverine" with a link to buy tickets.

Reynolds' signature brand of cross-self-promotion also made for more than a few impactful viral moments. He gave star Wrexham AFC player Paul Mullin a small cameo in the movie as "Welshpool," to the delight of Wrexham fans, and gave the livery of Formula 1 team Alpine (he's an investor) a "Deadpool & Wolverine"-inspired makeover for the film's opening weekend, which coincided with the Belgian Grand Prix.

All of it has kept the hype around "Deadpool & Wolverine" interesting and exciting — exactly the opposite of the long and often joyless-seeming slog of promotion around recent Marvel offerings like "Eternals" and "Quantumania."

With its box-office success, "Deadpool & Wolverine" is proving that an R-rated character can integrate into the MCU mold without sacrificing quality and uniqueness — and maybe there is room for the lovable antihero to play in the larger superhero sandbox.