Last weekend, North American theaters ushered in the large-scale release of the Marvel movie "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3", which also marked the official opening of the 2023 summer vacation.

In the end, the film was released in 4,450 theaters and earned $114 million at the box office, the second highest so far this year, second only to "Super Mario Bros. Movie." In addition, compared with the $106 million opening box office of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy", which was released in February and is also a Marvel movie, this result has also slightly improved. However, looking at the $146 million opening box office of "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" released in 2017, this is enough to show that the so-called "Marvel Universe movie aesthetic fatigue" in the industry may have become a trend.

"Guardians of the Galaxy 3" stills

Since "Iron Man 3" in 2013, over the past ten years, American audiences have long been accustomed to ushering in a new Marvel movie at the end of April and early May. Looking at the North American box office openings of these ten films, "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" ranked first at the bottom with $114 million, even though the average North American movie ticket price has risen a lot in the past ten years.

At this time last year, Marvel's "Doctor Strange 2" still earned $187 million at the opening box office. After a year, why so many American audiences have lost interest in Marvel movies is really an intriguing question. Moreover, the key point is that compared with the IP of "Doctor Strange", the IP of "Guardians of the Galaxy", which has been developed to the third part, is obviously higher in terms of popularity and audience awareness. Thinking of the box office performance, it is not as good as "Doctor Strange 2".

As far as the work itself is concerned, "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" currently has a freshness of 81% on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes", which is slightly lower than the 85% of the previous work, but compared to the 47% freshness of "Ant-Man 3", The quality is quite different; moreover, it has an A grade in the audience's post-viewing score, which can basically be said to be a conscience work that is far above the passing line. It can only be said that maybe American audiences are really tired of watching this kind of superhero story that changes the soup without changing the medicine, so instead, it is a new work like "Super Mario Bros. Movie", even if the story itself is not very exciting, Still more than a month after its release, it still managed to take in $18.6 million at the weekend box office.

As we all know, "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" is the last work directed by director James Gunn for the Marvel Universe in a short period of time. In October last year, he accepted Warner's invitation to become the co-head of DC Films. The next step will be to focus on bringing well-known IPs such as "Superman" to the screen again. In this regard, the public opinion is that DC Comics has finally ushered in the right man, and only Gu En can save him in order to break his wrist with Marvel. But ironically, as far as the current situation is concerned, it is probably not just the DC comic universe that needs to be rescued.

James Gunn on the set of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, testing the weight of a Star-Lord prosthetic. It is reported that the weight of the prosthesis is 35 pounds, about 15.9 kilograms

"Guardians of the Galaxy 3" stills, the star-lord that Nebula is holding is a prosthesis

James Gunn has worked for Marvel for three years. He directed three "Guardians of the Galaxy" works, and also directed the well-known "Suicide Squad X: All Assembled" for DC. Marvel's jump to DC has also triggered various rhetoric from the industry and netizens. This time, during the promotion of "Guardians of the Galaxy 3", Director Gunn especially emphasized that in his opinion, DC and Marvel should not be competitors.

"There are always people who think that Marvel and DC hate each other, or have irreconcilable polarities. But the truth is not the case. In my opinion, everyone's purpose is the same, which is to attract audiences to buy tickets to watch the show. , this is the most important point. So the two families can work side by side to achieve the above-mentioned goal. The better the Marvel movie, the better it is for the DC movie, and vice versa. Well, it's also a good thing for Marvel movies. Don't think that these two are like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. They have to fight to the death. There is no winner-take-all problem here, as long as the audience Appreciate your work and be willing to buy tickets to enter, then there can be two winners."

"SMS Love" Poster

In addition to "Guardians of the Galaxy 3," Sony Pictures also released their romantic drama "Love Again" over the weekend. The film was released in 2,703 theaters and only earned $2.42 million at the opening box office, which seems to confirm the trend that modern audiences are becoming less and less willing to pay for such works. Fortunately, the production cost of "SMS Love" is said to be only 9 million US dollars, and it should not be a problem to recover the cost in the end.

"SMS Für Dich" is a remake of the 2016 German film "SMS für Dich" (SMS für Dich), which was based on the best-selling German novel of the same name, about a young woman who is devastated by the sudden death of her boyfriend and continues to pursue her own life. A warm story about sending a text message with a mobile phone number, but accidentally contacting another man. This Hollywood remake basically maintains the story line of the original work, but the guest role of Celine Dion, the queen of music, added a lot of color to the film. It was her appearance that made the actor who works as an entertainment reporter finally pluck up the courage Court the heroine.