I freely admit, I was enormously skeptical of Guardians of the Galaxy when rumors started circulating. It just seemed too dense, too inside-baseball, for non-comics people to show up. It wasn’t until later that I realized that yeah, aliens and humans blowing stuff up in space is kind of a proven formula… and boy, has it ever done well for Marvel.
How well? It’s officially the third highest-grossing Marvel movie of all time, with only Iron Man 3 and The Avengers ahead of it. That’s both in the US and worldwide: Factoring in the rest of the world, it’s raked in an impressive $732 million. And that’s with the terrible Chinese subtitles.
The real money, of course, is in selling merch and pimping the team out beyond just movies. But the big question is what comes next. There’s a second movie on the way for 2017. There’s a cartoon series in the works as well. But will the Guardians cross over, as a lot of fans believe? Or have they made enough money that Marvel’s going to launch a slightly separate franchise of space operas?
Also, can they steal Luke’s hand from Cloud City? Because that’d be a good way to seal up that rumored plot hole.
Via Screenrant