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Filmmaker James Gunn’s Marvel Studios swan song, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, is blasting off this weekend, the de facto start of the summer box office, with an eye at $250M worldwide. Of that $110M is coming from domestic, and $140M from overseas.
Wrinkling some box office sources brows is how the threequel’s start is poised to be off Vol 2‘s U.S./Canada opening high of $146.5M back in 2017. Before we scream threequelitis, which most superhero movies possess Teflon against, let’s allow this latest Marvel sequel to play out. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 has the longest-running time in the trilogy at 2 hours and 30 minutes, and currently has the lowest (yet solid) reviews at 78% fresh (versus 85% certified fresh on Vol. 2 and 92% certified fresh on the original 2014 title). Since reviews hit last week for GOTG3, advance ticket sales have been growing. Still, tracking is always wobbly when it comes to predicting the strength of $100M+ openers and at the end of the day, not many studios can lay claim to them. GOTG3 ‘s expected $100M+ opening will mark the sixth one for Marvel Studios post-pandemic.
While the pic is hot with all demos, we hear that GOTG leans a tad female given main star Chris Pratt.
Advance tickets sales for GOTG3 are pacing currently at $26M and building. Last year at this time, Marvel Studio’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had $60M in presales before charting the post-pandemic’s second best opening stateside behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($260.1M) with $187.4M.
There’s an Imax Wednesday night preview of GOTG3 in 100 theaters, which also feature the previous other two films. That cash will be folded into the Thursday night 3PM preview. Regular Thursday previews begin at 3PM. GOTG2 brought in $17M in previews before a $56M opening day Friday. GOTG3 stateside is booked at 4,400 theatres, comprised of 400 IMAX auditoriums, 960 Premium Large Format screens, 2,900 3D locations, 285 D-Box/4D motion screens, and 85 ScreenX locations.
GOTG3 starts its international rollout on Wednesday in such markets as the UK, France, Germany, Korea, Italy and Japan. Through Friday it will be in all offshore plays, including China.
China remains the flex factor in how high or low the offshore start goes for the threequel. There are some limited previews there on Wednesday and Thursday ahead of the official start on Friday. The movie currently leads presales for Friday but is facing huge headwinds with several local pics in the mix. Saturday is also a workday.
Couple that with the fact that Marvel has not yet rebounded in the market since the unofficial ban on movies featuring its characters was lifted with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (several months after the release elsewhere) and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania in a February day-and-date bow, and there is reason to be skeptical. To be fair, it’s not just Marvel, it’s all Hollywood movies outside of Avatar that are not excelling.
Historically speaking, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 debuted to $173M offshore, at today’s rates and including $49M from China.
The previous movies in the series had staggered releases overseas, the last one debuting in late April to take advantage of the May Day bank holiday in many European markets which will have provided some oomph. This one is going post-May Day.
The GOTG team has been on a massive global tour, including most recently a gala event in Paris at the Avengers Campus at Disneyland. They also attended the premiere at Dongdaemun Design Plaza on April 19 in Seoul.
Sony has the chutzpah to go in the face of GOTG3 with female counterprogramming, the Screen Gems Priyanka Chopra Jonas romantic comedy, Love Again, inspired by the songs of Celine Dion, who is also in the film. Booked at 2,650 theaters, Love Again is looking at $5M (the pic cost a net of $9M). Previews start Thursday at 4PM.