Logan just released this past weekend and it earned $88 million domestically and $248 million worldwide. Not only did this weekend exceed initial projections, it should also prove that the folks down at 20th Century Fox are at their best with their R-rated blockbuster properties.
Let's start off with the obvious and talk about Logan. For a film made with a $97 million budget earning $248 million worldwide in its opening weekend is a great first start. With the great word of mouth it's been receiving, it should end up earning a little over $600 million. Logan will also give Warner Brothers' Kong: Skull Island a run for its money for the #1 spot this weekend. After this weekend, we'll have a better idea of how much will Logan be able to hold on.
Logan isn't the only R-rated comic book movie distributed by 20th Century Fox that has had tremendous success. Last year's Deadpool had the biggest opening weekend of all time, for an R-rated film, earning a little over $132 million and it ended up with over $783 million worldwide. The most impressive feature was that it only cost $58 million to make.
And in 2015, Fox's Kingsman: The Secret Service earned over $414 million worldwide on a budget of $81 million. The good word of mouth helped it stay in the top five in the box office for six weeks.
So are these movies doing well because they're R-rated?
Kind of. The R-rating isn't the main reason why we enjoyed these movies. However, the R-rating allowed the directors to have more creative freedom. With the creative freedom, Fox has managed to keep a low budget in order to reduce the risk as much as possible. The R-rating has also forced Fox to be more careful with these films. If Logan ended up being a bad film, they would lose more money than they would with a PG-13 rating.
A big contributor to this success is the marketing campaign. If a critically praised film has a bad marketing campaign, it will suffer in the box office. Don't believe me? Just ask Warner Brothers about Edge of Tomorrow's box office run. Fox has to applaud their marketing campaign for Deadpool and Logan's huge opening weekends. With great trailers and hilarious Deadpool ads that add more interest in the film, the opening weekends will skyrocket original projections.
Fox's three attempts with the R-rating have been a home run. In the near future, we could be seeing a lot more big budget R-rated blockbusters from 20th Century Fox. As of this year, Fox's biggest, intended, money makers will be Logan, Alien: Covenant, War for the Planet of the Apes, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Three of these films are R-rated. It's safe to say that 20th Century Fox is a lot more confident in releasing R-rated movies costing more than $50 million to make.
Fox's biggest gamble will now be Alien: Covenant. The film is projected to have a $150 million budget. If this is true, this will be Fox's most expensive R-rated film to date. And if it ends up being another home run, Fox will no longer be hesitant when considering releasing big budget R-rated films.
Do you think Fox should release more R-rated blockbusters?
