Tyler Bates swept action audiences off their feet with his score to Deadpool 2.

Tyler Bates is the compositional king of the box office, with Deadpool 2 killin’ it to the tune of a  $125.0 million opening weekend — the second biggest R-rated North American debut ever according to Comscore. Bates is on a rockin’ roll, having just received a BMI Film Music Award for his outstanding performance at the past year’s boxoffice with Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and Atomic Blonde. 

Bates also composed the scores to last year’s John Wick: Chapter 2. Deadpool 2 stars Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin and Morena Baccarin and is directed by  David Leitch, who helmed 2014’s John Wick as well as Atomic Blonde.

Bates, who is represented by Fortress Talent Management’s Rick Jacobellis, is one of the town’s busiest working composers, having scored more than 50 feature film since Cassian Elwes gave him his big break on 1993’s cops versus aliens adventure Blue Flame. He also keeps a very busy TV scoring schedule, working on Amazon’s Grand Tour, Netflix’s The Punisher and The Cartoon Network’s Samurai Jack.

When he isn’t sounding out popular entertainment for screens large and small, he writes, records and tours with Marilyn Manson.

Second place at the box office goes to Alan Silvestri for Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War earning $28.672 million in its fourth weekend for a North American total through Sunday of $595.0 million and $1.8 billion worldwide, “making it is the No. 4 global release of all-time,” according to Comscore senior analyst  Paul Dergarabedian.

Silvestri was also honored at the May 9 BMI Film, TV & Visual Media Awards: for this very same Avengers, directed by the brothers Anthony  and Joe Russo,  and Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One. Silvestri is represented by Gorfaine/Schwartz.

Counter-programming the super-hero action, New York-bred composer Peter Nashel created the music for Paramount’s Book Club, which paged to third place with a strong $12.5 million debut. The story of four longtime friends whose lives are turned upside down after reading 50 Shades of Grey. The PG13 rated feature has an old-star cast Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Dreyfuss, Andy Garcia, Wallace Shawn, Alicia Silverstone, Don Johnson & Craig T. Nelson. Nashel is represented by Fortress’ Robert Messinger.

Composer Fil Eisler celebrated fourth place with Warner Bros.’ comedy Life of The Party toasting a $7.725 million second weekend and has earned $31.037 million through Sunday. The film stars Melissa McCarthy as a dedicated housewife who after being dumped by her husband goes back to college and winds up in the same class as her daughter. Evolution Partners’ Christine Russell and Seth Kaplan.

Rounding out the top five is composer Johnny Klimek and Universal’s Breaking In, starring Gabrielle Union as a woman who will stop at nothing to rescue her two children being held hostage in a house designed with impenetrable security. The film took in $6.470 million in this its second weekend and has earned $28.750 million in North America through Sunday.

Australian-born electronica specialist Klimek achieved notoriety for scores to Run, Lola, Run (1998) and more recently scored 2012’s Cloud Atlas, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. Klimek is also currently scoring the Netflix series Sense8, created by Cloud Atlas co-directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski. Klimek is repped by Oticons’ George Christopoulos and WME’s Amos Newman.

The rest of the top 10 feature scores by Heitor Pereira (Open Road’s family film Show Dogs, which opened to $6.035 million); Lyle Workman (Lionsgate’s romantic comedy Overboard, which netted $4.725 million in its third weekend); Marco Beltrami (Paramount’s horror hit A Quiet Place, scaring up $4.04 million its seventh weekend for a cume of $176.176 million); Andrew Lockington (Warner Bros.’ animals-on-the-loose-ransacking-Chicago actioner Rampage, starring Dwayne Johnson, adding $1.50 million its sixth weekend for a grand NA total of $92.423 million through Sunday); and Michael Andrews (the STX comedy I Feel Pretty, starring Amy Schumer, with $1.20 million in its fifth weekend and $46.53 million through Sunday).