Weekend Box Office: Guardians 3 bucks superhero movie fatigue trend

It looks like the buzz about superhero fatigue, or at least Marvel fatigue, was somewhat overblown, with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 posting a muscular $60.5 million weekend (significantly higher than what I predicted earlier this week). That’s only a 49% second-weekend decline, which, according to Deadline, beats the 55% decline the first two movies saw. In the end, it likely won’t gross as much as either of the other two movies domestically, thanks to a somewhat soft opening and a different marketplace, but the hold is terrific. By comparison, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania had a disastrous 70% drop in week two, and even the beloved Spider-Man: No Way Home had a 68% drop. Fans seem to love what’s being called the series’s final instalment, although certainly, there’s a way forward for some of the characters…

Meanwhile, despite being Mother’s Day weekend, Book Club: The Next Chapter couldn’t beat those pesky Super Mario Bros for second place, earning only $6.5 million, which was only about half of what 80 For Brady opened to during the summer. That film had the novel idea only to charge discount prices regardless of the showing time, but Focus didn’t opt to follow suit, and indeed, this is a bummer opening for the Jane Fonda/ Diane Keaton- led comedy.

As for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the domestic total for this monster stands at $535.9 million, an incredible number for Imagination’s video game adaption. One movie many people were curious about this weekend was Robert Rodriguez’s Hypnotic. Due to a complicated legal situation, the film was contractually obligated to open on more than 2000 screens, with very little advertising. It still managed to eke out $2.35 million, which I assume most will be calling a disaster, but all things considered, I’m not sure it did all that poorly. Thanks to the lack of advertising, it was never going to do well, and I assume it’ll do better on streaming. Star Ben Affleck’s Air was still hanging around the top 10 despite dropping on Prime Video worldwide this weekend, with it finally passing the $50 million mark in theatres, which is a swell result for a movie that was originally designed to premiere via streaming.

The same can be said for Evil Dead Rise, which was initially slated to be an HBO Max original but has just cleared $60 million at the domestic box office, a strong result that proves once again that horror does really well theatrically.

Way further down the list is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which posted a $740k weekend for a $92 million gross. It seems unlikely this crowdpleaser will pass the magic $100 million mark, meaning a sequel, sadly, seems unlikely.

BlackBerry, a movie that I loved about the Canadian tech company, opened just outside the top 10 in eleventh place with a $473K weekend. It was only open in 450 screens, but this is a middling opening for such a great film. Hopefully it picks up more traction on streaming. It really is one of the best movies of the year.

Do you think Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 bucked the second-weekend decline trend because of how good it is? Is superhero fatigue real? Let us know in the comments!