Disney and Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which officially kicks off the Summer box-office season, reportedly pulled in $17.5 million in Thursday night previews according to Deadline.
To put that in comparison, the second ‘Guardians’ scored an on-par $17 million in Thursday night previews ahead of a $56 million opening day and a $146.5 million opening weekend.
Pre-release projections on the domestic opening weekend of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” have been all over the place, though they seem to have ended up in the $110-130 million range. Those estimates could now well be raised, though Marvel’s recent fare has been more front-loaded than those in the past.
One thing that might have an impact is the reaction. Amongst critics, this is the lowest rated of the three films, and many are curious to see if this will get an A CinemaScore with audiences to match that of the first two.
The figures come as Illumination, Universal and Nintendo’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” will cross the $500 million domestic box-office mark either tonight or tomorrow – the film hitting that goal in just one month.
With the film’s box office going strong, that might be why Universal has opted to delay the PVOD release for ‘Mario’ by a week. Originally slated to hit services on Wednesday this coming week, it will now reportedly arrive a week later on May 16th.
Note: The original version of this article listed $14 million in previews for ‘Guardians’ which was the estimate last night until the actual $17.5 million figure was published this morning.
Source : https://www.darkhorizons.com/third-guardians-takes-14m-in-previews/
