Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Marvel has another smash hit on its hands. After a strong $101 million opening last week from a few international territories, the full-blown theatrical opening weekend force of “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2” smashed the box-office doors wide open and went interstellar. Domestically, ‘Guardians 2’ soared to an incredible $145 million debut, the 17th best opening weekend gross ever. That’s a massive 53.7% jump from the $94 million ‘Guardians 1’ opened to in 2014. After two weeks in theaters around the world, the movie is already at $427.6 million — the 6th highest grossing movie of the year globally. Even in this opening weekend, ‘Vol 2.’ is already the 8th highest grossing film in North America.
What you’re looking at is a film that’s going to easily surpass the $773.3 million total that the original “Guardians Of The Galaxy” made around the planet. It’s too easy to predict if the film will cross the coveted $1 billion mark, but it’s not out of the question. Keep in mind, the original ‘Guardians’ ran 25 weeks starting in August, and the sequel has opened right at the beginning of the summer and should play all season long (though with more competition). Keep an eye on these numbers as it will be interesting to see what happens. This nearly $146 million opening makes for the 5th highest domestic opening ever for a Marvel film behind “Iron Man 3.” ‘Guardians’ should have it easy next week, too, as many are predicting a flop for Warner Bros.’ “King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword” (I sure am).
Elsewhere at the mainstream box office? Well, no one would dare go up against Marvel, so that was that it for wide releases. So what happened for holdover films at the box office? “The Fate Of The Furious” cracked the $200 million mark at home ($1.158 billion and counting); “Beauty And The Beast” inched close to $500 domestically ($487M with $1.18 billion worldwide); and surprise box-office winners from last weekend, “How To Be A Latin Lover” and “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion,” held their ground and stuck in the top 10. No one is more surprised than Kevin Spacey that “The Boss Baby” is headed towards $500 million globally.
In limited release, and a huge vote of confidence for cinephiles, Janus Films’ re-release of Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” fared best ($19,785 from one screen), A24‘s “The Lovers” also did well ($70,410 from four screens for a $17,603 per screen average), and boxing drama “Chuck” posted good numbers ($40,416 from four screens for a $10,104 PSA). Flopping pretty hard, though, was The Weinstein Company‘s “3 Generations,” which could only earn $3,353 PSA ($20,118 from six screens). Oren Moverman‘s “The Dinner” earned decent enough money to land just outside the top 10 (#13), but its PSA ($755,348 from 505 screens/ $1,496 total) wasn’t anything to write home about.
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 — $145,049,000
2. The Fate of the Furious— $8,528,965 ($207,136,495)
3. The Boss Baby — $6,175,000 ($156,735)
4. How to be a Latin Lover — $5,250,000 ($20,653,320)
5. Beauty and the Beast — $4,943,000 ($487,594,615)
6. The Circle — $4,020,000 ($15,715,113)
7. Baahubali 2: The Conclusion —$3,242,532 ($16,175,528)
8. Gifted —$2,055,000 ($19,240,331)
9. Going in Style —$1,900,000 ($40,600,918)
10. Smurfs: The Lost Village — $1,820,000 ($40,570,574)