How Marvel's Deadpool & Wolverine Supercharged NSYNC's 1999 Hit 'Bye Bye Bye'

The Overview:?

Marvel's latest blockbuster, Deadpool & Wolverine, has made a historic impact at the box office, grossing a staggering $205 million domestically in its opening weekend and reaching an impressive $824 million globally. This makes it the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time domestically, surpassing The Passion of the Christ and setting the stage for it to join the billion-dollar club within the next week. With such momentum, it’s well on its way to solidifying its place as one of the top-performing Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

Beyond the headlines of its box office success, one of the biggest storylines surrounding the movie (sorry for the spoiler alert) was the opening scene where Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds, performs a choreographed dance-fighting sequence set to NSYNC’s 1999 hit, "Bye Bye Bye." This scene did what any iconic sync would for a classic hit - it gave a jolt of nostalgia to NSYNC fans and introduced the song to a new generation who missed out on the late 90s and early 2000s boy band era. The scene was so compelling that it sparked a massive movement of dancers, creators, and Marvel fans sharing their imitations and breakdowns of the iconic dance. In fact, the search volume across platforms was so high that Google Trends saw the keyword “Deadpool NSYNC dance” jump 1,110% since the movie’s release on July 26th.

The success of the sync and connecting it to NSYNC’s iconic dance moves wasn’t surprising to people like Darrin Henson, who originally choreographed the music video for "Bye Bye Bye." In a recent interview, he shared that the dance elements of the choreography still connect generations who both experienced and are now just discovering the phenomenon that was and is NSYNC.

For the X-Men fans out there, this isn't the first time that "Bye Bye Bye" has graced the X-Men universe. The song made a brief appearance in X2: X-Men United, where it played during a scene involving a chaotic escape from the X-Mansion.

The trifecta of a song opening scene, a viral inimitable dance, and the history “Bye Bye Bye” has had in the X-Men universe, helped give the song perhaps the brightest spotlight the song has seen in years, leading to the track peaking at at No. 32 on Spotify’s daily top 50 U.S. chart.?

All this visibility surrounding NSYNC and “Bye Bye Bye” has even the original band members of NSYNC considering a reunion to celebrate their upcoming 30th anniversary, which could include a live comeback show, a new album, and a documentary. While nothing is confirmed yet, the possibility has fans eagerly anticipating a full-scale reunion.

The Insights:?

How has this prominent sync reinvigorated the popularity of “Bye Bye Bye” and NSYNC? By analyzing data from Chartmetric and Meltwater, the Beats + Bytes team discovered that since the movie premiered on July 26th:?

• Mentions of NSYNC or “Bye Bye Bye” and the Deadpool & Wolverine movie reached 87K total mentions, averaging 7.25K mentions per day, across social, broadcast, and news outlets. Additionally, the renaming of the original music video and the song’s success on Spotify has generated significant interest and discussion online.

• NSYNC's Instagram followers increased by 15,954, representing a 0.92% increase.?

• NSYNC's Spotify monthly listeners increased by 6,890,254, representing a 75.51% increase.

• NSYNC's YouTube subscribers increased by 50,000, which represents a 2.96% increase.??

• NSYNC's average daily YouTube views surged from 852,259 to 4,422,770, an increase of 3,570,511 or 419%.?

• NSYNC's song "Bye Bye Bye" gained 31,105,082 streams on Spotify, representing a 5.53% increase.?

• The "Bye Bye Bye" official music video gained 8,870,455 views on YouTube, representing a 2.43% increase in views.

• The Shazam count for NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" increased by 415,087, representing a 15.51% increase.?

The Takeaway:?

Sync is undeniably valued by the music industry. In 2023, the industry generated over $700 million from sync, just from the three major labels. Numerous studies (such as this one from Netflix & Spotify) highlight that a great sync can drive consumption, discovery, and, in some cases, like with Deadpool & Wolverine, significant user-generated content that broadens visibility and sparks conversation around a film.

At Beats + Bytes, we noticed a unique strategy that we haven't seen in other prominent syncs: changing the metadata of the original song to match the moment associated with the sync. For example, "Bye Bye Bye" was renamed across all streaming services to "Bye Bye Bye (From "Deadpool & Wolverine"). This savvy marketing move capitalized on search traffic centered around the sync and the film, making it easy for new listeners to identify and add the song to their playlists.

Our takeaway? Labels and publishers can maximize the impact of great syncs by aligning the metadata and search keywords with the moment associated with the sync. While it remains to be seen how long this metadata change will stay on services, it is clearly effective and could benefit other songs experiencing a culturally significant sync moment like "Bye Bye Bye" has with Deadpool & Wolverine.

Editor’s Note: Research assisted by Samantha Fuss, Editor-in-Chief of Digital Debrief, Soleill Eugenio, Intern at United Talent Agency (UTA) as well as Kristen Hong of CAD Management.