Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is continuing upon the surprise success of the first film with a larger opening weekend, around $146 million, it topped its predecessor’s $94 million. With more theater showings and a larger budget, many people wondered how much money the sequel will manage to make and if it will be able to join the $1 billion club. We have reached the third weekend and the film is projected to marginally beat out by the R-rated Alien: Covenant, making $35 million to Covenant‘s $36 million. It must be noted that with such a small margin the two could end up switching positions after final tallies.

Will the larger drop in its third weekend (46.3%) in comparison to the first Guardians of the Galaxy (40.4%) doom its potential at $1 billion? If put into comparison with the other first sequels of Marvel Studios’ films, it is going to pass Iron Man 2 domestically soon and only Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s massive $459 million stands before it. It will potentially end its domestic run short of the $400 million, but still with a great sum of $375 million.

Together with its current foreign income of $430 million, it comes to a total income of $732 million at the Box Office. $55 million alone were from IMAX cinemas, which proves the rise in popularity of the format, which may be the reason why Marvel TV decided to co-produce the upcoming Inhumans show with them. Currently, the film is around 19% ahead of the first one by foreign exchange rates and will pass the $800 million mark by the end of the holiday weekend. By these estimates, the film will potentially be short of the $1 billion mark with a $875 – 900 million total run.

While early estimates hoped to see the film pass that major benchmark, it still is making a considerable amount of money for a group of characters who were once completely unknown to the general public. It will also become the highest earning first sequel for the MCU for a non-Avengers series.  It is great to see Guardians 2 build upon its predecessors’ success and it will be interesting to see how much a third installment could ensure.

What are your thoughts? What are your estimates for the total income?

Source: BoxOfficeMojo (Guardians Comparison), BoxOfficeMojo (First Sequels Comparison), Forbes