Just mere hours separate Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 from its fate as early box office predictions (and a mediocre Rotten Tomatoes score) suggest the long-awaited threequel will have a difficult time battling for the affection its two predecessors so seamlessly earned.
Vol. 3 kicks off Hollywood’s summer season of blockbusters this Friday, but James Gunn and co. are going to need a set of floaties if they have any hope of helping the MCU stay above water. The Hollywood Reporter suggests the film will rake in an average of $120 domestically, which puts it directly between the first Guardians and the second, which brought in $94.2 and $146, respectively (not adjusted for inflation).
The opening weekend projections are a win by normal movie standards, but given Marvel’s recent slate of pedestrian, if not intolerable, projects of late (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Thor: Love & Thunder, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Eternals…) the dip in numbers from Vol. 2 to Vol. 3 suggests audiences are weary of forking up their hard-earned cash for a franchise that’s left them repeatedly disappointed.
Fortunately, Vol. 3 still has the wave of initial positive reactions to ride into the weekend, which referred to it as the “best since Endgame” and even awarded it a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. However, the hype was short-lived. As the movie got more eyes on it, its critic score quickly dropped to 80%, making it officially worse than another contentious MCU threequel.
When all was said and done, the first two Guardians movies brought in $773.3 million and $863.8 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Should Vol. 3 escape the criticism surrounding Marvel and defy the opening weekend predictions, the threequel just might see itself inching closer to The Mario Bros. Movie at the billion-dollar box office mark. Of course, the last Marvel movie to do that was Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021, and we have a sneaking suspicion that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, no matter how good it is, is just slightly out of Peter Parker’s grasp.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 premieres in theaters on May 5. You can read our review of the film here.