Does "had plenty of bark at the box office" mean "had a great success at the BO"?

Ori, this is a play on words. Although I don't believe Wolverines actually bark.
The saying is... a person (usually) or a dog's 'bark is worse than his bite'.
In this case, the movie had plenty of bark or was something worth barking about. And it's bite is that the flick is exciting or whatever.
It doesn't really mean anything other that it's kind of a clever 'tip'o'hat to the main character being a bit of an animal and in the reviewer's eyes it's worth spending cold hard cash to see it.
Slices up the competition means two things, it's beating the competition and it's a reference to the main character Wolverines hands/paws that cut up his enemies.

Thank you Ceili.
Can we say "John has plenty of bark at his shop"?

The saying is a comparison of a "bark" to a "bite".

A dog's "bark being worse than its bite" means that the dog sounds scary and menacing when it is barking at you, but the dog is unlikely to physically attack you.

The saying is applied in non-dog situations to describe anything that sounds menacing but is not a serious threat.

The way it was used in the movie review is not quite the way the phrase is usually used. They praised the movie by saying it had a satisfying amount of both bark and bite.


Getting back to your question above, only referring to "bark" without also referring to "bite" might not make it clear to people that you are talking about "bark verses bite".

Just saying he has plenty of bark at his shop makes it sound like he is selling tree bark.