It's finally showtime for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, as the latest Marvel Studios film to be hyped and held in front of our faces is just a few hours away from its earliest showings. While previous estimates evaluated the film's best case scenario for its opening weekend at a $160 million opening gross, there was always a chance that the range had either shrunk, increased or even narrowed to a more defined window of results. And that's exactly what's happened, as a new report has pegged the new film's first domestic weekend to land between the $140 - $160 million windfall.
Deadline's updated figures put Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 within this range, merely on the backs of U.S. and Canadian theaters. With around 4,300 screens showing James Gunn's big ticket comic sequel, the domestic opening weekend for the galaxy's second time saviors is only on 220 more screens than the 2014 debut of the Guardians of the Galaxy brand. That predecessor film opened with $94 million, although that was in August of 2014. As the series was an unknown, the previous success was not guaranteed, and that film still ended up with a total gross of $773.3 million. While that was a big deal for an August release date, there will need to be a lot more firepower in the Guardians' arsenal to top the stats for May.
Should Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 stay on track for a $140 - $160 million opening weekend, it still won't be enough to conquer the $207 million that The Avengers raked in back when the Marvel Cinematic Universe first united its Earthbound heroes, before branching off to such self proclaimed "A-Holes" as the Guardians of the Galaxy. While these estimates could still be exceeded, or even missed altogether, it's a good chance that the range defined will be the one we see reported on Monday morning.
Again, we don't have too much longer to wait to get the ball rolling.Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is entering our cinematic atmosphere in early showings Thursday night; and with those early showings, the summer box office season is about to take full effect. So stick with us at CinemaBlend, as it's about to get very interesting in these parts.
