Guardians of the Galaxy 3’s opening weekend box office can’t fully reverse Marvel’s slide
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s first weekend has come to a close, but the movie didn’t exactly set records at the box office. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest update earned $118 million at the box office in its opening weekend, which brings it in slightly ahead of other recent entries to the franchise, but still a far cry from the totals Marvel might have been aiming for.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which was released in 2017, earned $146 million, putting it far in front of its own sequel. Meanwhile, other recent movies like last year’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness topped even the earlier Guardians film with an opening weekend of $186 million. 2023 continues to be off to a rough (at least by its own standards) start for Marvel, but at least Guardians 3 outperformed Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which only reached $106 million.
Though the openings of these last two Marvel movies have struggled, it’s repeat viewing that Disney hasn’t been able to capture recently. Since Spider-Man: No Way Home in late 2021, Marvel hasn’t managed to have another release cross the $1 billion threshold. The worst offender of these was Quantumania, which ended its theatrical run at just $475 million. Guardians 3 has some of the best word-of-mouth of any recent MCU movie recently, however, which Disney hopes will propel its second week stronger than other recent Marvel movies.
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