The highest-grossing Valentine's Day release is a gory, R-rated film that minted $783 million; beat Fifty Shades series

How an R-rated gory actioner managed to beat all popular rom-coms at the box office on Valentine's Day.

Updated on: Feb 14, 2025, 15:31:08 IST

By Abhimanyu Mathur

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Globally, Valentine's Day is the day of love and romance. Normally, film releases also reflect that and some of the most popular and successful romantic comedies and dramas have released in the Valentine's Week over the years. But despite blockbusters like Fifty Shades of Grey, Valentine's Day, Hitch, and 50 First Dates riding on the V-Day wave, they were all beaten by a gory and irreverent action film, which remains the highest-grossing Valentine's Week release. (Also read: World's highest-grossing film series made $31 billion, more than Star Wars, Harry Potter, and James Bond combined)

The highest-grossing Valentine's Day film of all time

The Marvel and Sony superhero film Deadpool is the highest-grossing film released on Valentine's weekend. In 2016, the Ryan Reynolds-starrer was released in theatres on February 12, in the middle of Valentine's Week. In its opening weekend, the R-rated superhero film grossed $132.2 million in North America and $132.4 million overseas, bringing its global opening weekend to $264 million, the highest ever. Its eventual global box office gross was an astounding $783 million.

Box Office Mojo ranks Deadpool as the top-grossing film released in Valentine's week. In comparison, Fifty Shades of Grey earned $569 million, Will Smith's Hitch made $371 million, Adam Sandler's rom-com 50 First Dates made $198 million, and the multi-starrer drama He's Just Not That Into You earned $178 million. Valentine's Day, an anthology film, fared slightly better with a global haul of $216 million.

Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds as the titular superhero.

The legacy of Deadpool

Made on a budget of just $58 million, Deadpool revitalised the comic book character's global popularity and pushed Ryan Reynolds firmly into Hollywood's A-list. The sequel - Deadpool 2 - released in 2018, fared even better with a $785 million global haul. The third part - Deadpool & Wolverine - united Reynolds' Deadpool with Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and integrated the film into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It earned $1.34 billion worldwide.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhimanyu Mathur
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More

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