Guardians Of The Galaxy: How does Marvel’s new hit compare to The Avengers?

Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest superhero movie from Marvel, has smashed the US box office record for an opening weekend in August.

 

The light-hearted sci-fi adventure made $94m (£55.8m) in domestic ticket sales this weekend, comfortably beating the previous record of $69m set by The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007.

 

Starring Chris Pratt as the leader of a misfit band of space adventurers, Guardians picked up an overall global debut of $160.4m and has also won over the critics – it currently has a 93 per cent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

Hollywood forecasts had predicted a $65m to $80m opening for the film after a relatively disappointing summer season for blockbusters. 

 

 

Yet despite the film’s unprecedented August success, Guardians’ opening weekend take was still light years behind some of Marvel’s bigger successes. In fact, it was only the 10th highest opening weekend for a Marvel film.

 

Marvel’s The Avengers holds the record with a whopping $207m from its opening weekend in May 2012. Unsurprisingly, The Avengers went on to be the highest grossing film from the comic publishers’ stable, with a total gross of $623m. 

 

Still, Guardians has already earned more than The Punisher and Elektra put together.

 

May seems to be the most fruitful month for Marvel’s films with their seven best opening weekends and four of its five highest grossing films released in the month (Spider-Man 2, released in May 2004, was the only exception).

 

The most profitable superhero in the studio’s history is a close-fought contest between Peter Parker and Tony Stark, also known as Spider-Man and Iron Man.

 

And it’s the playboy billionaire who comes out on top, with Iron Man leading the way with an average gross of $429m per movie. However, if you discount The Avengers – a film in which Iron Man shares the billing with five other heroes – then it is your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man who is the biggest banker for Marvel.

2014 marks the first time Marvel has released four films within one year, and with the success of Guardians – one of the more obscure stories from the Marvel universe – they are unlikely to slow down the output anytime soon.

 

The Avengers sequel and Ant-Man both have summer release dates set for 2015.