Guardians of the Galaxy 3's Sixth Weekend at the Box Office: A Note

In its sixth weekend in release Guardians of the Galaxy 3 took in another $7 million, bringing its total up to $335 million. As this suggests, late in its run its holds are a little better than expected (Memorial Day weekend giving it a bump, and this weekend seeing it decline just 34 percent from the preceding), with the result that the movie's final gross seems all but certain to exceed $340 million and likely to approach (or even slightly breach) $350 million, nearly three times its opening weekend gross.

Internationally the movie's gross is now up to an even stronger $470 million, if with the film fading faster (enough so that I think the final take will be in the $485-$500 million range).

The result is that where I had thought the film likely to finish up around $825 million I am now thinking more in terms of the $825-$850 million range. At least 10 percent or so better than my more optimistic pre-release guesses based on its predecessors, and the plummeting projections regarding the opening weekend (my calculations pointed again and again at the $700-$750 million range), it falls well short of proving the Marvel Cinematic Universe's naysayers wrong about its being a franchise in decline. (Even the $850 million would leave it the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise in real terms by quite some way, and confirm the trend of decline from sequel-to-sequel.) However, it does at least remind them that even with the trajectory downward the franchise's films still put in performances robust by almost any other measure.