Even more impressive is that it is outside the family-friendly audience with an R rating in the US and MA 15+ in Australia. Contributing to that is a reported 116 uses of what’s coyly called the “f bomb” plus an uncounted number of “c bombs” and buckets of gore, usually spilled by Deadpool and/or Wolverine while a pop song is playing ironically.

In Australia it is already the year’s fourth-biggest cinema release after one week (taking $24.9 million), behind only Inside Out 2 ($52.5 million and counting), Despicable Me 4 ($40.2 million) and Dune: Part Two ($35.9 million). Around the world it’s also the fourth-biggest release of the year, behind Inside Out 2 ($US1.5 billion), Dune: Part Two ($US711 million) and Despicable Me 4 ($US680 million).

“Yes, it’s rated R,” Reynolds, who also produced the movie, told The Hollywood Reporter after it took a much-more-than-forecast $US233 million at the North American box office on its opening weekend. “But we set out to make a movie with enough laughs, action and heart to appeal to everyone, whether you’re a comic book movie fan or not.”

While far from a perfectly realised movie, not to mention less subversive than the first two Deadpool instalments in 2016 and 2018, Deadpool & Wolverine had a formula that worked even better than Marvel must have expected.

It brought together two popular superheroes, Wade Wilson/Deadpool and Logan/Wolverine, played by much-loved actors whose online banter has helped promote the movie.

It has jokes – so many jokes – that some will land for pretty much everyone in the audience and encourage return visits to cinemas to catch the ones that were missed first time around.

It also has a different type of comic book villain in Charles Xavier’s shaven-headed twin sister Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), whose threat is to the timelines the two superheroes exist in, and an ending that avoids the dreaded VFX-dominated climactic battle.

Without matching the gravity of Black Panther or Logan, Deadpool & Wolverine has a climax with at least some emotion.

Comic book fans are also served up endless irreverent digs at staples of the Marvel movies, including the multiverse and sacred timeline, and jokes about characters breaking the fourth wall, spending too much time on exposition and stealing “IP” from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

And beefing up viewer interest are the many cameos, including Chris Evans as the Human Torch, Channing Tatum as Gambit, Wesley Snipes as Blade and Jennifer Garner as Elektra.

“Deadpool & Wolverine was mostly built as a love letter to Marvel fans, an effort to show diehards that the studio had rediscovered its mojo,” The New York Times noted.

After Marvel’s disappointments attracted Wall Street scrutiny last year, Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger, was thrilled by a movie that includes numerous digs at the company. He called it on Instagram, in much milder language than Deadpool would use, “one heck of a fun film!”

The outlook for Marvel’s coming releases suddenly looks brighter. Next year Captain America: Brave New World is out in February, with Anthony Mackie taking over in the title role from Chris Evans. Then Thunderbolts, about a group of anti-heroes played by the likes of Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Olga Kurylenko, is out in May.

In July comes The Fantastic Four: First Steps, with Pedro Pascal as Mr Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as the Invisible Woman and Julia Garner as the Silver Surfer.

The Russo brothers, who directed Marvel’s two biggest hits, 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, are working on two new Avengers movies, Doomsday and Secret Wars, that are out in 2026 and 2027.

The challenge for Marvel Studios’ president Kevin Feige now is to keep each movie feeling fresh and overcome the superhero fatigue that audiences undoubtedly felt over the past two years. And it wasn’t just Marvel that struggled, with DC Studios releasing the disappointing The Flash, Blue Beetle and Shazam! Fury of the Gods last year.

But there are longer-term problems with comic book superhero movies that will test their ability to survive. Way back in 2019, legendary director Martin Scorsese criticised them for not being real cinema, which was all about “revelation, mystery and genuine emotional danger”, rather than battles with little at stake.

“The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes,” he wrote. “They are sequels in name, but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way.

“That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and re-modified until they’re ready for consumption.”

The best superhero movies, led by Black Panther and Logan, can overcome those limitations. The challenge for Marvel is doing it regularly, with so many more movies on the way.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.