Guardians of the Galaxy was perhaps the riskiest of all the Marvel movies released so far. It took place in space with a set of characters not well known by mainstream movie watchers, including a talking raccoon and a walking tree. However, it’s now the most successful new Marvel film after this weekend’s box office haul. This gave director James Gunn a chance to offer up a plate of crow to doubters and plenty of thanks to supporters.
Gunn made the following post on Facebook following updated box office numbers for the weekend.
“‘ Guardians of the Galaxy ‘ box office just passed up ‘ Iron Man ,’ making us the biggest Marvel franchise-starter yet. And we still haven’t opened in Japan, China, or Italy.
“If I had a penny for every time someone said making a Marvel movie with a talking raccoon was dumb and that ‘Guardians’ was going to bomb, I’d probably have just about the amount of money ‘Guardians’ has made so far. So I’m glad I spent that time making a film instead of counting people and their opinions, because we’re still going strong. Also, making the movie was a little more productive, and people seem to enjoy it. Not to mention that I would have had a difficult time collecting all those pennies, and the bank would have been pissed off at me when I tried to exchange them for large bills.
“But, once more, YOU ALL are the ones who bought the tickets. We provided the material, but you took it into your hearts and made it a hit. So THANK YOU, and love to you all (even those of you from whom I’d otherwise be collecting pennies).”
The director does have a point about the reaction to a talking raccoon in a Marvel feature film. Remember, the X-Men movie first featured the mutant heroes in black leather because the comic costumes were thought to be laughable. Comic book movies from Marvel have now been accepted enough that we can now have Rocket and even the Vision closely resembles his comic book look for Avengers: Age of Ultron .
Gunn’s movie did it by becoming the number one film in the United States for the sixth weekend out of seven weeks of release. The only weekend that it has not led was during the opening weekend of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , when Guardians of the Galaxy came in second.
Guardians of the Galaxy has earned $294.9 million domestically so far, but limped to that number with an estimated $10.5 million this weekend. An extremely weak movie weekend allowed the superhero movie to take the top spot once again, as Deadline reported .
There’s still more Guardians to come too. A sequel for 2017 was announced just prior to the first movie’s release. Some details about where the movie will head have also been revealed, as The Inquisitr reported .
What did you think of James Gunn’s comments about Guardians of the Galaxy ? Let us know in the comments below.