Guardians 3 continues a long tradition of Marvel movies leading the summer at the box office. It also comes after CinemaCon, the annual gathering of theater owners and Hollywood studios in Las Vegas. This year’s show was certainly upbeat, despite the threat of a writers’ strike (officially underway through Tuesday, May 2). The good mood was largely due to the resounding success of Universal and Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which has joined the billion-dollar box office club.
The current tracking peg for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 with approximately $120 million in North American receipts and $130 million from international markets. It’s off to a weaker start than the previous chapter in the series – Vol. 2, clearly – but still healthy enough to give the film positive word of mouth and repeated visits to give it the legs it needed to reach its box office potential.
Recent events (mostly in the form of two animated plumbers from Brooklyn named Mario and Luigi) tell us that recent tracking and forecasting have sometimes failed to accurately capture audience enthusiasm and some of the major headlines.
No one is expecting Top Gun: Maverick to top $718.3M just yet. But we didn’t know what a sequel was until we had it. Plus, we have more August this year with Blue Beetle, Meg 2, and Gran Turismo than last year (which died after Bullet Train). That means more movies are opening north of $20M than last August. The question is how to expand the market, even potentially going head-to-head on July 21-23, with Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer tentpoles atop each other in the summer. Big enough for? This is what is important for box office stability away from Covid.
Box office analysts say they would not be surprised if Guardians 3 comes to fruition, and tracking has been complicated by the massive success of Mario, whose voice cast is led by Guardians star Chris Pratt, who was promoted in both films. I went. Has been done had to take time to give.
Marvel could use a hit after the disappointing performance of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which opened ahead of the previous two Ant-Man installments but topped a franchise-low of $476.4 million worldwide.
In terms of the Guardians franchise, the 2014 film grossed $439.6 million domestically and $773.3 million worldwide, according to comScore. Guardian Vol. 2 earned $863.8 million worldwide, including $389.8 million domestically and $473.09 million overseas.