NEW YORK — In the Ryan Reynolds-Blake Lively box-office showdown, both husband and wife came out winners. Reynolds’ Marvel Studios smash “Deadpool & Wolverine” remained the top movie in North American theaters for the third straight week with $54.2 million in ticket sales according to studio estimates Sunday.
Worldwide, it’s now surpassed $1 billion. “Deadpool & Wolverine,” though, was closely followed by “It Ends With Us,” the romance drama starring Lively, which surpassed expectations with a stellar $50 million debut. Together, the films created a kind of family edition of “Barbenheimer,” in which a pair of very different movies thrived in part due to counterprogramming.
Only this time, the opposite movies were fronted by one of Hollywood’s most famous couples. The films’ one-two punch wasn’t entirely unprecedented. In 1990, Bruce Willis’ “Die Hard 2” led the box office while Demi Moore’s “Ghost” came in second.
The weekend also featured a high-priced flop. “Borderlands,” the long-delayed $120-million videogame adaptation directed by Eli Roth, launched with a paltry $8.8 million for Lionsgate.
The film, starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Jack Black, was shot all the way back in 2021. After delays and reshoots, it finally landed in theaters effectively dead-on-arrival; it scored just 10% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and seems likely contend for one of the worst movies of the year. Meanwhile, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which co-st.