Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman kicked off the massive Comic-Con pop culture event on Thursday with a special screening of “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Their superhero mash-up movie could break box office records this weekend.
Hollywood’s top stars took the stage before 6,000 screaming fans, many of them costumed as spandex-clad heroes and villains who had won a lottery to attend the hot-ticket inaugural event in San Diego, California.
The film brings together two of the most popular characters from Marvel superhero movies. Reynolds’ foul-mouthed Deadpool teams up with Jackman’s aging Wolverine from the “X-Men” films.
It is widely expected to be one of the highest-grossing films of the year.
“I think the ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ movie is really the movie I’ve waited my whole life to make,” Reynolds said before leading a surprise screening of the full film.
“We’ve been all over the world with this movie, but the icing on the cake is right here, right now,” Jackman said.
“Deadpool and Wolverine,” which opens in theaters worldwide this weekend, is expected to break box office records for “R”-rated movies that children can’t watch without adults.
Reynolds’ antagonist frequently “breaks the fourth wall” by speaking directly to the audience, telling sexually explicit jokes, and sarcastically mocking the Marvel franchise and its studio, Disney.
Trade magazine Variety estimated that the film could gross up to $200 million in its opening weekend in North American theaters.
The current record for R-rated films is held by the original “Deadpool,” which earned $132 million in its opening weekend in 2016, which also received a Comic-Con preview.
“I remember I made that movie for you,” Reynolds told the superhero fans who make the pilgrimage to San Diego each year.
“And I remember how satisfying it was that everyone else liked it, too.”
One of the world’s biggest pop culture events, Comic-Con began five decades ago as a simple comic book-themed gathering in the basement of a hotel.
Today it attracts A-list stars.
Also on Thursday, Chris Hemsworth attended a panel for the animated prequel “Transformers One,” while director Roland Emmerich promoted his new thriller drama “Those About to Die,” set in ancient Rome.
This is a stark contrast from the previous year’s edition, when Hollywood strikes prevented actors from participating and fan interest waned.
This time around, Comic-Con is expected to draw 135,000 people to the Southern California city.
On Saturday, Disney will also hold a highly anticipated Marvel presentation that is expected to reveal sweeping plans to reboot its big-grossing superhero movies after recent missteps.
Marvel movies have dominated the Hollywood and global box office for years, with 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” briefly becoming the highest-grossing film of all time with more than $2.79 billion.
But the past few years have produced more flops than hits, as fans complained about overly-complicated plots and mourned the departure of favorite characters such as Robert Downey Jr.’s “Iron Man.”
The franchise has been hit by revelations of domestic violence against actor Jonathan Majors, who was set to be a major new supervillain in several films.
Majors, who was convicted of assaulting his then-girlfriend, has been dropped by Marvel, but plans to replace him have not yet been revealed.
This week, audiences will get the chance to see “Alien: Romulus,” the latest film in the long-running science-fiction series started by Ridley Scott with 1979’s “Alien.”
Disney’s rival studio, Warner, will debut a preview of its Batman spinoff TV series “The Penguin,” starring Colin Farrell.
Amazon’s Prime Video will lift the curtain on the second season of its “Lord of the Rings” television series, aiming to improve upon the mixed reviews of its hugely expensive first season two years ago.
Comic-Con runs through Sunday.
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