How will Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 perform at the box office? In our long-range box office forecast, we are going to take a look at how it’ll take on the domestic and worldwide box office.
It’s no secret, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on a dramatic decline over the past 12 – 18 months – both critically and from a box office perspective. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness did well but fell below most expectations. Thor: Love and Thunder was serviceable financially but significantly under expectations. It is tough to place any kind of box office expectation on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as that film was dealing with lots of shifting pieces – I’d say its performance was good domestically and poor internationally.
The big flop though is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania which is projected to end its run with less than $500M WORLDWIDE (!!). It isn’t like Ant-Man has really been one of the leading MCU characters/franchises, especially in its box office so it isn’t an indication of a trend or any kind of fatigue.
In terms of the narrative currently circulating about whether superhero or MCU fatigue is real or not, I believe there is zero substance to that claim BUT Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 is going to be a BIG indicator of this. So let us dive into the advantages and disadvantages of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3’s upcoming box office run:
Advantages:
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe – I know, I just made a whole speech about how disappointing it has been but do not let that confuse you. The MCU is still a money-making machine, it remains a formidable force at the box office. At the very least, it guarantees a high opening weekend – however, not with the box office legs.
- Franchise reputations – The Guardians of the Galaxy has had two prior films and they have both been well-liked by critics and moviegoers. They also appeared in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame which both earned over $2 billion making the franchise a bonafide cash cow. We’ll see if that translates to a non-Avengers film.
- James Gunn and an A-List cast. James Gunn may not be a household name but we know if you put his name with the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise – it will likely generate good word of mouth. The cast includes the likes of Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista and Will Poulter. Big names like this will only broaden the awareness and appeal of the film.
- It will be the first major movie release of the summer movie season and there will be a demand/urgency to
Disadvantages:
- Also, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When we think of box office longevity, we do not think about the MCU. We know that MCU films are usually heavily frontloaded and they drop off fairly quickly. This was the case even prior to Phase 4 and now this is only exaggerated as films released in 2022 and 2023 have had huge drops with weak multipliers. Could this be a trend?
- It may be a compelling time to release Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 to kick off the summer movie season but with that, comes competition. Vol. 3 will have two weeks to itself before the next major competitor in Fast X releases (followed by an onslaught of the week-by-week competition after this). It will need to maximise its small window with a majority of its earnings.
- This seems primed to be a domestic box office success but what about the international audience? The dialogue that I am reading forgets the fact that no Guardians of the Galaxy films have done well at the international box office. Both are under $500 million and Vol.2 didn’t have a significant bump over the first film (only $34M). For a film to eclipse the one billion mark it AT LEAST needs to make $500M – only one film (The Dark Knight) eclipsed the billion-dollar mark under $500M internationally and it was only $6 million above the billion-dollar mark. Before y’all do your box office predictions for this, please remember, Guardians of the Galaxy is not currently a major box office draw outside of the domestic market. Do we think it will change now? We’ll see.
Our Box Office Forecast for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3:
Domestic Box Office:
Opening Weekend: $135 million
Total: $365 million
Worldwide Box Office:
Total: $890 million
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