(Photo: Disney Studios)

“Deadpool & Wolverine” and… who? The Marvel hit’s cameos, by the numbers

If you couldn’t tell by the headline, this is full of spoilers!

8/5/24 9:34AM

We waited more than a week, so you’ve probably had enough time to see Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which has smashed several records, including the highest-grossing opening weekend for an R-rated film. The raunchy, ultra-violent third installment in the Deadpool series is estimated to have grossed more than $395 million so far, and it is filled to the brim with Marvel easter eggs and inside jokes for die-hard comic-book fans.

SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD!

OK, you can’t say we didn’t warn you.

One of the most-talked about parts of the film is the deep bench of past Marvel characters who make brief appearances in the film, including a bunch from the dark ages of Marvel movies—those that predated the classic Marvel Cinematic Universe films of the past 15 years or so. This period was when many classic Marvel properties were owned by 20th Century Fox, before Disney acquired the studio in 2019. All of the X-Men films were produced by Fox, and fans have long waited to see the two parallel Marvel universes merge. This is the first film to do it.

So we took this moment to look back at the films that featured the Marvel characters who make an appearance in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” how many films they appeared in, and how much they made at the US box office before they were resurrected in the hottest movie of the summer.

The character that had the largest cumulative amount of grossing films was…Happy Hogan? Jon Favreau’s character, who started off as Tony Stark / Iron Man’s valet and provided a lot of comedic relief, has been a consistent throughline across 10 of the Marvel Universe’s biggest blockbusters, including the Avengers and Tom Holland Spider-man films. Tally those films up, and films featuring Happy have raked in over $4.7 billion in the US.

For comparison’s sake, Wolverine’s eight prior films, which included most of the X-Men films, totaled $1.5 billion at the box office.

The “Deadpool & Wolverine” character with the least-grossing film history is the villain Bullseye, with only one film appearance (2003’s Daredevil), totaling $102.5 million.

Tom Jones

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America’s favorite board game is proving a tricky subject for a feature film.

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The BBC has become the world’s top news website... by collapsing a little less than its competition

Press Gazette just published its annual look at the biggest news sites in the world across all languages; for the most part, it doesn’t make for particularly pretty reading.

The journalism industry publication’s latest update, which is based on estimates provided by Similarweb for May, found that 37 of the world’s 50 most visited news sites saw their reach shrink. Press Gazette highlighted that American outlets have been hit particularly hard by declining Google traffic compared to European counterparts, owing to the platform’s AI features rolling out earlier in the US.

Even the BBC, having climbed the rankings from last year to top the 2026 chart — reportedly in part thanks to Similarweb’s decision to combine the “.co.uk” and “.com” versions of the URL, given that the sites redirect to each other depending on the user’s location — showed a 1.9% decline from last year.

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Last night’s Tony Awards were a curtain call for a record-smashing season on Broadway

This year’s star-studded theater awards wrapped up the highest-grossing season Broadway’s ever seen.

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Kids these days are listening to more songs from the good old days

Music nostalgia is in full swing, and the younger listeners of today appear to be partying like it’s pre-1999.

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Drake whiffs on an expected No. 1 on Spotify

Drake started at the bottom and he’s here, but not quite at the top... of Spotify, at least.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Drake dropped his three surprise albums — “Iceman,” “Habibti,” and “Maid of Honour.” Heading into the month, prediction markets were rating it a near certainty, a 98% chance, that Drake’s sonic onslaught was enough to snag the No. 1 slot on Spotify at least once in June.

But, while he surpassed the late Michael Jackson and took up three slots on the Billboard album chart at once, his newly released songs haven’t quite cracked the popular music-streaming platform’s top charts, and market seem to think the moment has passed.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Spotify’s “Top Songs - Global” chart currently show that Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” which is more than four decades old, Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat,” which climbed back to the top of Spotify charts following his Coachella set in the spring, Olivia Rodrigo’s new angsty love song “The Cure,” and BTS’s “Swim” are all ahead of Drake’s “STFU Janice” from his “Iceman” album.

While Spotify previously reported last month that Drake’s “Make Them Cry” was the most streamed album in a single day this year, that was later revealed to be a data error.

Prediction markets currently show traders are betting there’s only a 15% chance Drake will have a No. 1 song on Spotify in June.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is in the lead at 98% — a day before the release of her new original song “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which she wrote and performed for Disney and Pixar’s upcoming “Toy Story 5” — followed by Olivia Rodrigo, whose highly anticipated album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” comes out next Friday.