Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Earns Franchise-Best Opening Night Box Office

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3's box office opening night set a new record for the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Marvel Studios and director James Gunn have watched the obscure group of Marvel characters become incredibly popular over the last nine years. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is the end of Gunn's trilogy and an emotional send-off for the original iteration of the team. Even after the film earned mostly positive reviews, the release of one of 2023's most anticipated movies has many looking at its box office performance. This is due to the recent disappointment that came with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's box office.
According to a report from Variety, Marvel Studios found some success with Guardians of the Galaxy 3's opening night box office, which set a new franchise record with $17.5 million earned from Thursday previews. This total edges out Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2's opening night performance of $17M, which easily surpassed the original's $11.2M opening night. It also puts the film directly on par with the only other Phase 5 Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, as Ant-Man 3 also made $17.5M on its opening night. The film's worldwide box office total stands at $52.5M so far.
Will Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Have The Franchise's Highest Opening Weekend?

This opening night might technically go down as a new record for the franchise as audiences sit through Guardians of the Galaxy 3's post-credits scenes, but it is unclear if box office opening weekend will do the same. The film's tracking data has been a bit surprising considering the previous films and how much it originally appeared poised to make. There was a time when Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was tracking for an opening weekend that would rival Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2's $146M from 2017. However, the movie's projections have continued to dip in the time since then.