Quick LinksThe Influence of Spider-Man Why Deadpool Didn’t Beat Spider-Man
If this summer’s movie season confirmed anything for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Deadpool is a box-office superhero. With the box-office success of Deadpool & Wolverine, the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ has risen to an impressive place on the highest-grossing superhero movie list, with a worldwide gross of $1,287,237,740. This makes it the only R-rated superhero movie in the top 10 and helps boost it to the spot of the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time.

But Deadpool won’t be celebrating just yet. Despite the success, Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t quite at the level of the highest-grossing Avenger. Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home is the highest-grossing superhero film, excluding the Avengers franchise, with a worldwide gross of $1,921,847,111. This means Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy is the only superhero series to have out-grossed Deadpool. In the MCU, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies have grossed $3,920,121,775.

The Influence of Spider-Man

This re-confirms the true power of Spider-Man as a character and one more than capable of standing apart from the Avengers. With news that Tom Holland is expected to return for Spider-Man 4, it’s no wonder why Marvel is keen to keep their star around for more adventures. As a character, Spider-Man displays the plucky optimism and fight for goodness that captures the hearts of millions. As a movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home had a lot of things going for it. The heavily rumored return of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire took over the internet in 2021, promising a Spider-Man team-up that fans have been wanting for decades.

Top 5 Highest-Grossing MCU Movies

MCU Movie Total Box Office Avengers: Endgame $2,797,800,564 Avengers: Infinity War $2,048,359,754 Spider-Man: No Way Home $1,921,847,111 The Avengers $1,518,812,988 Avengers: Age of Ultron $1,402,809,540

Within the MCU, Spider-Man quickly carved out an identity for himself that evolved along with the character’s importance to the Avengers. Spider-Man was catapulted from backup in Captain America: Civil War to being transported into space in Avengers: Infinity War. Tom Holland’s web-swinger occupies a valuable place, almost acting as an audience surrogate that entered when things in the MCU were starting to get more climatic and has been on that ride ever since. He has been a small-time hero in big situations, but he still gets to be a teenager in his solo films.

That balance of big and small stakes across multiple films hadn’t been seen for Spider-Man since the Raimi trilogy. Whatever the perception is of the MCU these days, Marvel has utilized Spider-Man in smart ways that have benefited their narrative arcs and the character as an individual. The character is iconic, and the MCU successfully translated that icon into a new style of franchise superhero film-making.

Why Deadpool Didn’t Beat Spider-Man

Compared to Spider-Man: No Way Home, Deadpool & Wolverine shares a few similarities. Apart from being the third in a trilogy, the two have surprisingly similar intentions. In the same way that Garfield and Maguire returned, the addition of Hugh Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine presented the same narrative challenge of bringing in other heroes whilst paying due attention to the arc of the lead superhero.

Top 5 Most Popular Marvel Characters by Total Box Office

Marvel Character Total Box Office Spider-Man $3,920,121,775 Deadpool $2,855,547,801 Thor $2,705,339,993 Wolverine $2,435,016,309 Iron Man $2,421,720,208

Deadpool & Wolverine had a harder job than Spider-Man: No Way Home in combining its characters. Wolverine was not only in his movie for longer than Garfield and Maguire, but Wolverine’s arc had ended in Logan. The two Spider-Men are realized characters in the audience’s mind, but Wolverine had to start again in Deadpool & Wolverine, paying homage to an old version of a character whilst justifying his return. Spider-Man: No Way Home used its Spider-Man battle in the final act, rather than trying to wholly weave its characters into the dramatic stakes of the story.

The different executions and audiences the heroes target can perhaps explain the difference in the box office. Not only is Spider-Man a more commercial character, but by Deadpool’s very nature, he is not kid-friendly, and, had the film been rated PG-13, most audiences would have been very disappointed. Spider-Man: No Way Home promised an epic team-up, and while Deadpool & Wolverine promised the same thing, it had more parts to juggle and a relatively smaller audience to attract due to its R-rating. Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters now. Spider-Man: No Way Home is available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and Google Play.