Weekend Box Office: Watchdog $3 Superhero Movie Fatigue Trend

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 released one of the smallest second weekend drops in Marvel history

It seems the buzz about superhero fatigue, or at least Marvel fatigue, has been somewhat exaggerated, with James Gunn Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 posting a muscle weekend of $60.5 million (significantly higher than what I predicted earlier this week). That’s just a 49% drop in the second weekend, which Deadline says tops the 55% drop in the first two movies. Ultimately, it probably won’t gross as much as either of the other two films domestically, thanks to a somewhat soft opening and a different market, but the take is tremendous. By comparing, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania had a disastrous 70% drop in week two, and even the beloved Spider-Man: No Coming Home was down 68%. Fans seem to be loving what’s being called the series finale, though some characters certainly have a way to go…

Meanwhile, despite it being Mother’s Day weekend, Book Club: The Next Chapter couldn’t beat those pesky Super Mario Bros for second place, earning just $6.5 million, about half of what 80 for Brady open during the summer. This movie had the original idea of ​​only charging discounted prices regardless of screening time, but Focus didn’t choose to follow that lead, and indeed, it’s a disappointing opening for the comedy directed by Jane Fonda/Diane Keaton.

As for The movie Super Mario Bros., the domestic total for this monster is $535.9 million, an incredible number for the video game adaptation of Imagination. A film that many people were curious about this weekend was that of Robert Rodriguez Hypnotic. Due to a complicated legal situation, the film was contractually obligated to open on over 2,000 screens, with very little publicity. He still managed to clear $2.35 million, which I guess most would call a disaster, but all things considered, I’m not sure he did that badly. Thanks to the lack of publicity, it was never going to do well, and I guess it will do better on streaming. Ben Affleck star Air was still in the top 10 despite dropping on Prime Video worldwide over the weekend, eventually surpassing the $50 million mark in theaters, which is a great result for a movie originally made for streaming .

The same can be said for Evil Dead Rise, which was originally slated to be an HBO Max Original but just grossed $60 million at the domestic box office, a solid showing that once again proves that horror is doing very well in theaters.

Further down the list is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thievess, which posted a weekend of $740,000 to gross $92 million. It seems unlikely that this crowd pleaser will break the magic $100 million mark, which means a sequel, sadly, seems unlikely.

BlackBerry, a movie I loved about the Canadian tech company, opened just outside the top 10 in eleventh place with a $473,000 weekend. It only opened to 450 screens, but that’s a mediocre opening for such a good film. Hopefully it picks up more streaming traction. It really is one of the best films of the year.

Do you think Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 bucked the second weekend downtrend due to its quality? Is superhero fatigue real? Let us know in the comments!