The box office numbers are in for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and unsurprisingly, the gang’s final ride is doing some impressive business across the globe with an opening haul of $282 million. In line with early estimates, $114 million came from the domestic US market and overseas ticket sales accounted for $168.1 million according to Box Office Mojo.
While Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 fell a few million short behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $137 million domestic three-day opening weekend, it did dethrone the Nintendo icons from their top spot at the box office, which the Illumination-animated film had held firmly onto for five weeks.
Guardians Vol. 3 is still comfortably ahead of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s $104 million US opening, and compared to previous films in the series, it has surpassed the domestic opening weekend of the original Guardians movie ($94.3 million). Guardian’s Vol. 2 still has the biggest opening domestic weekend of the trilogy, at $146 million, but Thursday showings in the US were a franchise best for the threequel.