One reason audiences love superheroes is because they can do impossible things. Until 1998, it seemed impossible for a single movie to earn $1 billion at the box office. In the age of superhero cinema, that’s something that’s starting to look easy to do. However, for Henry Cavill, the pursuit of a $1 billion box office hit eluded him for 11 years, until his less-than-30-second cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Since the pandemic, the rock-solid pop culture dominance of superhero films seems to have eroded in significant ways. While the theatrical release of Justice League, featuring the resurrection of Cavill’s Superman, is not fondly regarded by fans or critics, it still earned $661 million. (Though with a $300 million budget, that’s barely breaking even.) With Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel represents nearly a dozen of the films that have hit that billion-dollar benchmark. DC Comics’ films aren’t excluded from the club, either, though they appear much less frequently. Playing Superman is a lifelong feather in an actor’s cap, but for Henry Cavill, the billion-dollar milestone eluded him, even in massive franchises unrelated to comics like Mission: Impossible. Perhaps the best part of Deadpool & Wolverine breaking Cavill’s curse is how it makes the meta-joke in the film even funnier.

Deadpool & Wolverine Is Only the 55th Movie to Make $1 Billion

The first film to clear the $1 billion box office benchmark was 1998’s Titanic, and it reached $2 billion with its 2012 re-release. It’s a strategy director James Cameron used again when he rereleased Avatar to beat Avengers Endgame‘s record take. Still, in the slightly more than 25 years since Titanic crashed into that particular earnings ceiling, only 54 other films have crossed a billion dollars at the box office since. Deadpool & Wolverine is the most recent member of a still fairly exclusive club.

“Disney’s Marvel sequel, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as their comic book alter egos, has grossed $494.3 million in North America and $535.1 million internationally for a grand total of $1.029 billion at the global box office,” Variety reported, though final numbers won’t be known until Monday. This is Disney’s second billion-dollar movie after the record-breaking success of Inside Out 2, which is still in some theaters and earned more than $1.5 billion. Also, Deadpool & Wolverine will likely over taker 2019’s Joker as the highest-grossing R-rated movie, so long as it earns another measly $500 million.

If actor Henry Cavill cares in any way about hitting the billion-dollar benchmark, the Deadpool & Wolverine news is likely bittersweet. Technically, even talking about him being in the film is a spoiler. Audiences aren’t showing up for his roughly 20-second cameo as “the Cavillrine” (the legends are true). In fairness, they aren’t really showing up for Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool either. No, it’s the return of Hugh Jackman in his 25th year as Wolverine, finally in the comics’ accurate costumes, complete with white-eyed mask. Henry Cavill’s role is merely a garnish on a film packed with familiar faces.

Is the Billion-Dollar Benchmark Important to Henry Cavill’s Superman Legacy?

Every actor who played Superman in live-action earns a level of immortality, for example, Kirk Alyn, the first man to don the red-and-blue tights (in black and white). Yet, playing Superman doesn’t necessarily result in the kind of blockbuster career actors hope for. People who’ve played Superman don’t necessarily go on to make more movies, instead acting on television, hosting podcasts, and, rarely, becoming an oft-mocked political commentator. The film industry can be a cruel and foolish business, so if Henry Cavill starred in the first billion-dollar Superman film? It wouldn’t have hurt.

Henry Cavill was a truly excellent Superman, who delivered exactly the kind of Kal-El he was supposed to. Director Zach Snyder’s vision of the character, especially Clark Kent, was different than what fans expected and part of a much longer arc that was never realized. Because of shifting management and fear of Marvel Studios, the studio didn’t commit to their big-screen shared universe. Only DC’s Aquaman joined the billion-dollar club, alongside Christopher Nolan’s Batman and Todd Phillips’s Joker.

Of course, this elusive goal isn’t really that important for Henry Cavill’s career, and Deadpool & Wolverine earning $1 billion won’t hurt it, but it may not help, either. Cavill, however, may not need help. From Mission: Impossible Fallout to The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Cavill is still playing interesting characters prone to blockbuster action. In The Witcher, he was the rare point of agreement amongst a fanbase at odds about the series’ quality. He’s also set to lead the reboot of the Highlander film series. And, he will bring Warhammer 40,000 (unless the deal falls through) to a wider audience at Amazon.

How Making $1 Billion at the Box Office Makes Deadpool’s Henry Cavill Jokes Funnier

Despite still being rare for a superhero film to make a billion dollars, Deadpool & Wolverine doing that for Henry Cavill makes the film’s in-joke funnier. Early in the film as Deadpool searches for a new “anchor being” Wolverine, he visits various realities with Hugh Jackman playing Logan variants. However, in one of those realities he finds a very yoked up man working on a motorcycle with a distinctive haircut. Deadpool notes the man “looks like Henry Cavill” as the actor turns to reveal he’s also playing a Wolverine variant.

As far back as 2020, Henry Cavill was fan-cast as Wolverine, since Hugh Jackman apparently hung up the claws with Logan. After last playing Superman in the post-credits scene of the box-office-flop Black Adam, Cavill went through a second roller-coaster ride with Kal-El. He announced his return to the role for a new film just weeks before Warner Bros. Discovery fired everyone at DC Films and brought in James Gunn and Peter Safran to run the newly minted DC Studios. It began their tenure with a public relations disaster when Cavill again lost the Superman role in favor of David Corenswet.

In Deadpool & Wolverine Wade Wilson simply “geeks out” over Cavill as Wolverine. Deadpool tells the Cavillrine that seeing him as Logan “just feels right.” He then goes on to say that Marvel Studios “will treat you better than” the studio “down the street,” obviously meaning Warner Bros. After all, Reynolds turn as Green Lantern has been a source of many DC-focused jabs in the Deadpool films. Since all the dialogue is about how Cavill working with Marvel Studios would be better than his time at DC, Deadpool & Wolverine earning $1 billion is just icing on that fourth-wall-breaking cake.

The Importance of Billion-Dollar Movies in the Streaming Era

Before James Gunn decided on a reboot, Zack Snyder’s controversial take on Superman ultimately poisoned Henry Cavill’s future as the hero.

Once David Corenswet debuts his Kal-El in Superman, audiences will be able to reevaluate Cavill’s time in the tights. In fact, Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman started rehabilitating that era of DC comics storytelling. Cavill’s Superman was a unique take on the character, and one that might be better appreciated once Superman purists see their idyllic hero on the big screen again. So, even though Henry Cavill never appeared in a billion-dollar movie as Superman, that’s not what will help audiences revisit the character. Henry Cavill’s Superman redemption will happen on streaming.

Beyond just earning back exorbitant budgets, Deadpool & Wolverine‘s billion-dollar box office is a signal to the industry about what audiences want. Just a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that Marvel oversaturated the market with multiverse nonsense. So, Deadpool & Wolverine is their only 2024 movie, and audiences flocked to see Hugh Jackman, other returning stars and multiverse nonsense. This shows that Marvel still has the ability to earn big returns for Disney, and that audiences weren’t willing to wait for streaming to see Hugh Jackman back in action.

Still, streaming is here to stay. The economic concerns for audiences, not “superhero fatigue” are why box office returns no longer tell the full story. Franchise films like The Flash, The Marvels and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny didn’t earn big box office numbers but did very well on streaming. So, whether Henry Cavill gets a boost from Deadpool & Wolverine earning a billion dollars or not, his Superman will reach new audiences on streaming as long as it’s available to watch.