Guardians 3 box office projections: How much money will Vol. 3 make?

Guardians 3 is the next superhero movie coming at us, and people have high hopes for this one. It is the big finale event, as the current roster of the Guardians will be uniting for one last time. After an underwhelming start in 2023, it’s crucial for Marvel and the superhero genre in general that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 does well.

Since it is an MCU movie, it is expected to have a big opening weekend domestically and worldwide. But how much will it make? Will it beat The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s biggest box office opening of 2023? All these questions will be answered when the movie hits theaters. But for now, we do have the first projections for how much money Guardians Vol. 3 will make domestically.

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Projections for Guardians 3’s opening weekend

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Image via Marvel)

As per a report from Box Office Pro, Guardians 3 is estimated to make $120 - $155 million domestically in its first three days. As for its total domestic run, it is projected to take home $288 - $403 million in total. Considering that the film goes on to perform on the higher end of the projections, it will beat the previous two Guardians movies and even Super Mario’s biggest opening of 2023.

Guardians of the Galaxy opened with $94.3 million and made $333.7 million domestically and $773 million overall. Vol. 2 had an opening intake of $146.5 million and ended its total run with $389 million from North America and $863 million globally.

As per the initial projections, the upcoming film is expected to perform similarly to how Vol. 2 did. Considering that the superhero genre hasn’t been the most popular since 2022, Guardians 3 may not enter the Billion Dollar Club. The film will have to be really good to beat the projections and pull off this feat. It’ll only be possible with great word of mouth.

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The opening weekends of all Phase 4 and Phase 5 films

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Image via Marvel)

MCU’s Phase 4 and Phase 5 have had strong openings, but almost every film’s performance dipped after that. The following list shows how Phase 4 and Phase 5 movies performed on their opening weekends:

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - $106 million

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - $181 million

Thor: Love and Thunder - $144 million

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - $187 million

Spider-Man: No Way Home - $260 million

Eternals - $71 million

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - $75 million

Black Widow - $80 million

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Image via Marvel)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 surely has a chance to beat Thor: Love and Thunder on this list. But it will likely stay behind Black Panther 2, Doctor Strange 2, and No Way Home. It’s worth noting that in a different universe where Disney never fired James Gunn and COVID never struck, Guardians 3 would have surely gone past $1 billion.

The MCU peaked in 2019 as all three movies exceeded $1 billion (Endgame became the biggest movie ever with $2.799 billion worldwide). So, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 would have continued Marvel’s hot streak arriving on its original scheduled date of May 1, 2020.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and now Guardians 3 is left to counter the superhero fatigue, which is at an all-time high. It hits theaters on May 5.