Marvel Studios and James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista and the voices of Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper, opened on Thursday night with previews that amounted to $11.2 million, more than any other movie this year including Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. As of Saturday morning, the space-based comedy-adventure is estimated to have grossed $37.8 million, which is the third-biggest opening day of the year behind Godzilla and Transformers: Age of Extinction.
Below, you can see some of the numbers for the biggest opening movies of the year with “Transformers” currently leading the way with its $100 million opening just one month back.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Marvel/Disney – April 4)
$10.2 million Thursday
$36.9 million opening day
$95 million weekend
Godzilla (Legendary/WB – May 16)
$9.3 million Thursday
$38.4 million opening day
$93.2 million weekend
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Sony – May 2)
$8.1 million Thursday
$35.2 million opening day
$91.6 million weekend
X-Men: Days of Future Past (20th Century Fox – May 23)
$8.1 million Thursday
$35.5 million opening day
$90.8 million weekend (three-day)
Transformers: Age of Extinction (Paramount – June 27)
$8.8 million Thursday
$41.9 million opening day
$100 million weekend (three-day)
With an A CinemaScore and much better reviews than many of the movies above, there’s very little stopping “Guardians” from making 2.4 to 2.5 times its Friday for the weekend which amounts to an opening in the $95 million range, better than at least two of the summer’s superhero sequels, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past. It will be interesting to see if it ends up beating the $95 million opening for Marvel Studios’ other 2014 movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which is currently the highest-grossing movie of the year domestically with $258 million.
Either way, it’s well on its way to achieving the biggest opening weekend for an August release, a record previously held by Universal Pictures’ The Bourne Ultimatum with less than $70 million.
Check back tomorrow for the full weekend box office report, including international box office for “Guardians.”
