Box Office Predictions: Guardians 3 to have a less steep decline than usual in week 2

This weekend marks Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3’s second frame and its last chance to dominate the weekend box office before Universal’s Fast X blasts into first place next weekend. All eyes will be on Guardians 3’s box office drop, with Marvel having an issue lately as far as second weekends go. Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania dropped a disastrous 70%, while Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love & Thunder dropped 67 & 68%, respectively. Hollywood didn’t react as badly because both movies had blockbuster openings, while Quantumania was a little soft despite falling on MLK Day weekend.

Like Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 opened slightly lower than expected, with a $114 million gross. However, since audiences seem to like this movie a lot more than recent Marvel entries, it may have a less steep decline, like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which only posted a 63% decline. Some box office forecasters think it could have a sub-60% decline, but I’m less optimistic.

The Super Mario Bros movie is likely to fall into second place, adding somewhere between 8-10 million into its already massive till. Of the newcomers this week, Book Club: The Next Chapter is the only one expected to make much of an impact. The original film opened with $13 million before legging out to a $68 million gross. The sequel likely won’t do quite as well, as it’s moved from Paramount over to Focus Features and seems to be playing to an audience that, post-pandemic, isn’t as eager to hit movie theatres. That said, 80 for Brady shocked everyone and opened to $12.5 million, although they had a special deal for that one where tickets were reduced for all showtimes. Book Club 2 seems to be getting a more traditional release.

The new Robert Rodriguez film, Hypnotic, also hits theatres this weekend. One would imagine an action flick starring Ben Affleck would at least open in the top five, but it’s hard to get tracking data for the movie, with it opening on a limited amount of screens via a smaller distributor. We’ll have to wait and see how this one shakes out (although I enjoyed it).

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 – $53 million

Super Mario Bros – $9 million

Book Club: The Next Chapter – $8 Million

Evil Dead Rise – $2.5 million

Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret – $2 million

How much do you think Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 will drop this weekend? Let us know in the comments!