One factor that I think is being overemphasized is obscurity. A lot of people are saying the movie’s box office will be hampered by that fact that the Guardians of the Galaxy is an obscure comic book title very few people have heard of.
Which I think is missing the point. Because as I recall, there were similar doubts expressed about a movie based on Iron Man back in 2008. By movie audience standards, every comic book character other than Batman and Superman was obscure when their first movie was made. Unless you’re a comic book reader, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four were just as obscure a name prior to their movies as the Guardians of the Galaxy are.
There just aren’t that many comic book readers out there. Most people are going to make a decision on whether or not to view a new comic book based movie with no foreknowledge of the comic book. The movie has to sell itself - it can’t rely on just a crossover audience.
If pre-existing fame as a comic book mattered, then Watchmen would have been one of the biggest comic book movies of all time and Men in Black would have been a box office failure.
And even if people haven’t heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy specifically, Marvel has (wisely) been taking great pains in the advertising to tie it to Avengers etc., which people have heard of and liked.
Well I won’t be going to Vegas anytime soon but I knew it would do better than the early buzz was suggesting (the Buzz got decidedly more positive once people actually, you know, started seeing the film.
All of the reports this morning are saying 94 US, and about 160 international. Those are solid numbers, and it has a 93% critic rating with a 96% viewer rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so it could see some serious legs. I saw it last night and loved it, but I dig action, sci-fi, and comic books, so not much of a surprise there.
Favorite moment: Rocket telling Starlord he didn’t need that guy’s leg and asking if it was funny
Let’s test your powers- Here’s a list of big budget releases for 2015:
Assassin’s Creed
Peanuts
Inferno
Cinderella
Mission Impossible 5
Terminator sequel
Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children
Finding Dory
Independence Day sequel
Ant-Man
Pitch Perfect 2
The Adventures of Tintin 2
Pixar’s Inside Out
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Avatar 2
Man of Steel sequel [Superman-Batman]
Star Wars Episode VII
Kung Fu Panda 3
Fantastic Four
James Bond 24
Pirates of the Caribbean 5
Warcraft
Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Pt. 2
Inferno is the third Da Vinci code movie with Tom Hanks, **Assassin’s Creed **and Warcraft are based on video games, Finding Dory is the sequel to finding nemo, **Ant-man **is a Marvel - Disney production and Miss Peregrine’s is based on some young adult horror novel.
People who keep worrying about “The Death of the Movie Theater” baffle me. 2014 is clearly a down year because moviemakers have put almost all of their blockbuster eggs in the 2015 basket. And because they’re all so spread out, it’s unlikely that one will cannibalize the others.
At this point, the question isn’t, “Will 2015 produce the biggest box office in history?” Instead, the question is, “Just how high will 2015’s box office numbers go?”
2013 is the biggest year on record with $10.9 billion. In that year, we saw the first Man of Steel, Hunger Games 2, Iron Man 3, Frozen, Despicable Me 2, Fast & Furious 6, and Gravity.
2015 is going to have everything Sr Siete listed as well as Fast & Furious 7, Minions (a Despicable Me spinoff), Taken 3, Fifty Shades of Grey (I think it’ll flop, but others don’t), Mad Max 4, Jurassic World (starring GOTG’s Chris Pratt), Magic Mike 2, and Ted 2.
I’m not sure I’m going to leave the theater next year.
Not sure I agree. Personally, I don’t want to spend every weekend in a movie theatre. 2015 is so rammed with movies, I think some of them are guaranteed to flop
That’s going to be difficult, I think Groot may be the only one who isn’t a full time smartass. And between Diesel and the animation team they probably manage to suss up a smartbranch moment or three.
but I knew it would do better than the early buzz was suggesting (the Buzz got decidedly more positive once people actually, you know, started seeing the film.