It's too soon to say whether Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will become the first MCU movie since Spider-Man: No Way Home to top $1 billion at the worldwide box office, but the odds are certainly in its favour.
The official numbers are in and the threequel earned an epic $62.6 million in North America during its second weekend of release. That's an additional $2 million more than the figures reported by analysts on Sunday, and means the movie suffered a 47% drop rather than a 49% one.
2% may not look like much, but that's a big difference and a phenomenal performance for a post-pandemic MCU movie. It also puts James Gunn's MCU farewell in a unique club of Marvel Studios titles that suffered drops of less than 50%; now, it joins Iron Man, Thor, The Avengers, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther.
Now, with a $216.5 million domestic haul, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has earned $530.9 million worldwide. We've already told you how that figure eclipses the $465.8 million earned by Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania during its entire theatrical run, and when it comes to these two trilogies, it's clear which of them was the bigger draw for moviegoers.
Initially, much was said about Vol. 3's 78% Rotten Tomatoes score, though that would later rise to 82%. The Audience Score is far more telling, though, as it sits at 94% (the CinemaScore, meanwhile, is an awesome A).
With Fast X set to arrive in theaters this weekend, the movie will inevitably slip to second place, but should still perform well.
"As heart-wrenching as it is hilarious," we said in our review earlier this month, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is James Gunn’s masterstroke and a showcase for both his filmmaking talent and a cast that makes everything about this movie simply awesome. An absolute triumph."
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now playing in theaters.