‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ rockets to a $114M opening weekend
James Gunn’s MCU finale debuts ahead of ‘Quantumania’ but behind ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.’
Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of May 5-7, 2023.
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Weekend gross: $114M
Total domestic gross: $114M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA
Another Marvel Cinematic Movie, another No. 1 weekend release. When it comes to the MCU, though, that’s no longer impressive. These movies are supposed to be box office juggernauts. The question for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is whether it can keep drawing in moviegoers over the next few weekends or putter out like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania did.
But, yes, the good news for Vol. 3: James Gunn’s final installment in the franchise (and his final movie for Marvel Studios) opened at No. 1 with $114 million in North America. The film slightly exceeded projections, likely due to strong word of mouth.
A $114 million opening weekend gives Vol. 3 the 17th biggest debut for an MCU film (behind Spider-Man: Homecoming’s $117 million in 2017 and ahead of Quantumania’s $106.1 earlier this year). For Guardians of the Galaxy movies, it falls in the middle, surpassing the original’s $94.3 million but coming up short of Guardians of the Galaxy’s Vol. 2’s $146.5 million.
Pratt also becomes the second actor this year to have back-to-back No. 1 weekends with different movies. Jonathan Majors pulled off this feat in March with Quantumania and Creed III.
2. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Weekend gross: $18.6M
Total domestic gross: $518.1M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: -54
The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s reign at No. 1 comes to an end. Second place isn’t bad when you’re still adding to a domestic box office total of $518.1 million and a worldwide total of $1.16 billion. The movie now sits at No. 17 on the all-time domestic box office chart. The Super Mario Bros. Movie could easily pass Rogue One ($533.5 million), The Dark Knight ($535 million) and the “live-action” Lion King ($543.6 million) over the next few weeks.
Mario’s 54 percent drop between last weekend and this weekend really isn’t bad when you look at how the film stayed strong the past three weekends, dropping just 37 percent, 35 percent and 32 percent over those frames.
3. Evil Dead Rise
Weekend gross: $5.7M
Total domestic gross: $54.1M
Last weekend: 2nd
Percent drop: -53
Evil Dead Rise continues to perform ahead of 2013’s Evil Dead. The latest film in the franchise is a rounding error away from passing its predecessor at the domestic box office ($54,101,000 to $54,239,856) and has already cruised past the $100 million mark at the worldwide box office.
4. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Weekend gross: $3.4M
Total domestic gross: $12.6M
Last weekend: 3rd
Percent drop: -50
Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret is officially a flop. Last weekend’s disappointing debut would’ve been salvageable had the film rode strong word of mouth to log that total again its second weekend. Instead, It’s Me Margaret fell 50 percent.
5. Love Again
Weekend gross: $2.4M
Total domestic gross: $2.4M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA
I had to look up what Love Again was since I had no idea what movie this blurb was supposed to be about. Turns out its a romantic comedy starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Sam Heughan and Celine Dion — and it has a 17 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Box office numbers via The Numbers based on Sunday estimates.
Next weekend
How will Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hold on its second weekend? Both of the first two Guardians movies fell 55 percent in their second weekend. Vol. 3 will want to avoid the 70 percent plummet that Quantumania took in its second weekend.
