Fast forward to 2017, and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2." is an even bigger smash -- but not as big as many had predicted.
"Guardians Vol. 2" opened this weekend with an estimated $145.0 million, making it the sixth-biggest May debut ever, and yet that number almost seems like a disappointment. Yeah, it sounds petty to grumble about such a huge figure, but then, experts had been predicting an opening at $150 -- at one point, predictions were as high as $160 million or even higher.
Should "Guardians 2" have opened bigger? It certainly did better than the debuts of such Marvel sequels as "Iron Man 2," "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," and "Thor: The Dark World." Its 54 percent increase over the opening weekend of the first "Guardians" is the biggest percentage jump for any second film in a Marvel Cinematic Universe series.
On the plus side, there's the Marvel name. Arguably, it was the brand that helped make a sleeper hit out of the first "Guardians" three summers ago. Few experts had predicted that a superhero saga featuring largely unfamiliar characters -- including an angry raccoon and a talking tree -- would have been a smash. But the goodwill that Marvel has earned over the years carried a lot weight and allowed a lot of viewers to give the film the benefit of the doubt. Not only did the movie open with an astonishing $94.3 million, but it went on to gross $333 million in North America and $773 million worldwide.
True, the first "Guardians" wouldn't have earned those kinds of numbers if not for positive word-of-mouth once the film opened, but the Marvel name is what kicked the door open. "There's a general halo of quality with the Marvel brand," as Dave Hollis, Disney's Executive Vice President for Theatrical Distribution, put it in an interview with Moviefone.
Now that "Guardians" is an established franchise, however, the sequel is playing a different, more traditional game. Its position as the first blockbuster of the summer follows a carefully-drawn, time-tested blueprint. After all, movies featuring Marvel characters have owned the summer-kickoff slot for the past decade; Marvel films have kicked off the first weekend in May every year since 2007. (Only 2007's "Spider-Man 3" isn't from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but obviously features a Marvel hero.)
There are two dangers here. One is the conventional wisdom that it's younger viewers that drive the box office, particularly for comic-book movies. The other is that the older audience still relies on reviews, which were less than enthusiastic; apparently, critics who enjoyed the novelty of the first "Guardians" felt that the sequel was just more of the same -- if not less at times.
Hollis said that the absence of novelty was less of a liability than a creative opportunity. "When you have a sequel to a film that broke out the way the first 'Guardians' did," according to Hollis, "you no longer have the element of surprise, but what you gain is the audience's affection, which gives you the luxury to really delve into the world and the many unique and compelling things, from the colorful characters and the pitch-perfect cast to the music and visuals, that set it apart."
Indeed, word-of-mouth among paying customers was stronger than the reviews -- the movie earned a solid A at CinemaScore, Marvel's tenth consecutive film to do so -- but Disney had to get those viewers into theaters first.
"Guardians Vol. 2" is the latest of several big-budget Hollywood launches this year, from "Beauty and the Beast" to "The Fate of the Furious," that was made with someone other than the domestic, English-speaking audience in mind.
It's a vast movie galaxy out there. Domestic audiences who spent $145 million to watch the multi-racial, multi-species "Guardians 2" may soon realize that they're just a small part of it.
