Every Monday, I usually do a quick thing on the top five movies at the box office, except that this week, we had the exact same top three as the week before. Seriously. The only major change was that Parisian hell movie making it to fourth, but other than that, it’s pretty much the same as last week. So instead, let’s switch gears and talk about Guardians of the Galaxy. Specifically, that Guardians has just become the biggest movie of the year, just edging out Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Against two weak newcomers, Guardians of the Galaxy held on to first place at the box office on Friday. More importantly, Guardians passed Captain America: The Winter Soldier to become the highest-grossing movie of the year at the domestic box office with $262.1 million. Guardians added $3.8 million on Friday, which is down just 20 percent from last weekend. That puts it on pace for around $16 million for the three-day frame and over $20 million for the four-day holiday weekend. In the long run, Guardians is now guaranteed to earn over $300 million, and could finish as high as $320 million. SOURCE
Now it’s easy to say that this is all a matter of Marvel cranking out a steady stream of movies with built-in audiences, and normally I’d agree. But with Guardians of the Galaxy, they were basically going off a franchise that quite frankly not many people knew about. One with a cast of characters that, on paper, probably wouldn’t have pulled in huge audiences a few years ago. But, and here’s the important part, they were able to flesh them out into characters that people could actually root for. Characters that were weird and damaged and off-putting, but had enough soul to them that people were actually willing to get behind them. That’s why I think the movie has done so well, and has been able to hold onto the top spot for long enough to top the box office in an otherwise stale month: because they made characters that people wanted to see.