Deadpool & Wolverine, Blake Lively's It Ends With Us Box Office Battle Intensifies, Borderlands Suffers With Ill-Fated Debut [Full Chart Update]

Deadpool & Wolverine continues its box office reign despite fearsome competitor It Ends with Us entering the ring alongside the sputtering Borderlands. The Deadpool & Wolverine box office is already one of the year’s biggest stories as the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie opened with the biggest R-rated debut ever and quickly climbed past $900 million. In its second weekend, it easily batted down the thriller Trap, and its latest new release opponents are It Ends with Us, based on the controversial Colleen Hoover romance novel of the same name, and Borderlands, an Eli Roth-helmed adaptation of the popular video game.

Per Deadline, as of Sunday morning, Deadpool & Wolverine is projected to maintain its position at No. 1 by the end of its third weekend at the domestic box office with a 3-day total of $54.6 million. However, It Ends with Us is putting up fierce competition for second place, with projections placing it at $50 million by the end of the weekend. Meanwhile, Borderlands trails far behind at $8.8 million, and while sources say its roughly $120 million budget has largely been covered by international licensing, this is a slow start.

Deadpool & Wolverine Is Leading A Surprisingly Unpredictable August Weekend

It Ends With Us Woke Up A Sleepy Summer Box Office Period

It is perhaps no surprise that the Deadpool & Wolverine release held its No. 1 streak for another week, considering the fact that the MCU tentpole is in the middle of a record-breaking run that sees it rushing toward the billion-dollar mark worldwide. However, the competition between the new releases resulted in some major surprises on the Top 5 chart, shaking it up in the middle of its late summer doldrums. See the weekend’s updated domestic chart below:

With two well-heeled new releases attached to relatively well-known IPs joining the fray this weekend, the expectation for a typical quiet August weekend with a holdover Marvel tentpole would have been for one to take No. 2 and one to take No. 3. This is why It Ends with Us‘ release having such a powerful debut while Borderlands cratered so hard may feel especially unusual. However, Twisters has been a runaway smash, as has Despicable Me 4 (though not necessarily at the level of previous movies in the franchise), so Borderlands was up against especially fierce competition this weekend.

All of this motion on the Top 5 meant that two titles that charted last week have now exited the chart. The M. Night Shyamalan thriller Trap, which debuted at No. 3 last weekend, has now dropped to No. 6 with a 3-day total of $6.7 million. Meanwhile, the billion-dollar smash Inside Out 2 has fallen from No. 5 to No. 7 with a healthy $5.2 million.

Why Is It Ends With Us Connecting With Domestic Audiences While Borderlands Is Not?

Many Factors Have Gone Into It Ends With Us’ Success

Going into the second weekend in August, it might have seemed like the video game adaptation would have been the new release to beat. It is a blockbuster tentpole with a huge budget of roughly $120 million and a notable director in Eli Roth. That is not to mention the stacked Borderlands cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Gina Gershon, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who is a recent Oscar winner for the smash hit Everything Everywhere All At Once.

On the other hand, romance has had an uncertain box office track record recently. It Ends with Us has been plagued with controversy for its divisive depiction of domestic abuse and rumors of behind-the-scenes drama, and it comes with just one major A-list lead in Blake Lively. However, there are several factors that likely helped the romance movie triumph over the video game adaptation at the domestic box office. One of these is the fact that Borderlands has earned a dismal 10% score on Rotten Tomatoes score of 10% compared to the romance movie’s more mixed 58%.

It Ends with Us may have also been boosted by the controversy and drama surrounding its release rather than hindered by it, with the attention garnered by the discourse raising its profile when combined with the fact that it is based on a novel that became a BookTok sensation in recent years. It is also possible that the Borderlands cast, however stacked, may not have been perfectly designed to appeal to the core demographic of the game’s fanbase in the way that Lively may have appealed to fans of the book.

The fact that this is Blake Lively’s first lead role in four years and that she just made a cameo appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine opposite her husband Ryan Reynolds likely also helped draw more eyes to It Ends with Us, helping it trump Borderlands at every turn. However, it seems that, in a vacuum, the video game adaptation would have similarly underperformed. It remains to be seen if the Borderlands box office can slowly rise to make it a sleeper hit in North America, but its D+ CinemaScore shows that there is a low likelihood of that happening.

Source: Deadline

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  Deadpool & Wolverine

  
  

  4.0

  A follow-up to the highly successful Deadpool and Deadpool 2 films starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth. The third film will be the first in the franchise to be developed under the Marvel Studios banner following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

  Director

  Shawn Levy

  Release Date

  
  July 26, 2024
  

  Studio(s)

  Marvel
  , Maximum Effort

  Cast

  Ryan Reynolds
  , Hugh Jackman
  , Emma Corrin
  , Morena Baccarin
  , Rob Delaney
  , Leslie Uggams
  , Karan Soni
  , Matthew Macfadyen
  , Brianna Hildebrand
  , Shioli Kutsuna
  , Stefan Kapicic
  , Lewis Tan
  , Randal Reeder
  , Jennifer Garner
  , Aaron Stanford
  , Billy Clements
  , Ollie Palmer
  , Chris Hemsworth
  , Rob McElhenney

  Runtime

  127 Minutes

  Expand

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  It Ends With Us

  
  

  2.5

  Based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel, It Ends With Us is a drama-romance film directed by Justin Baldoni. The film follows a recent college graduate named Lily, who meets a man named Ryle and falls in love with him. However, a traumatic incident compounded with her former high-school sweetheart re-entering her life complicates her plans.

  Director

  Justin Baldoni

  Release Date

  
  August 9, 2024
  

  Studio(s)

  Columbia Pictures
  , Wayfarer Studios
  , Saks Picture Company

  Distributor(s)

  Sony Pictures Releasing

  Writers

  Christy Hall
  , Colleen Hoover

  Cast

  Blake Lively
  , Justin Baldoni
  , Brandon Sklenar
  , Jenny Slate
  , Hasan Minhaj

  Runtime

  130 Minutes

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  Borderlands

  
  

  3.5

  Based on the video game franchise, Borderlands is a sci-fi action-comedy film that follows Cate Blanchett as Lilith, a treasure hunter who returns to her home planet, Pandora, to find a tycoon’s missing daughter. Together with a group of unlikely allies, such as a soldier, a teenaged demolitions expert, a wise-cracking robot, and an eccentric scientist, the group will work together to save the girl – all while learning to deal with each other’s unyielding quirks.

  Director

  Eli Roth

  Release Date

  
  August 9, 2024
  

  Studio(s)

  Arad Productions
  , Picturestart

  Distributor(s)

  Lionsgate

  Writers

  Eli Roth
  , Joe Crombie

  Runtime

  102 Minutes

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