• Box Office

World Box Office, May 1 – 7, 2017

Blockbuster season is in full swing and reports of stratospheric openings will be coming in strong until the end of September. This week it’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 that touched down in the US and Canada, with $145 million. Guardians 2 is moving much faster than the original, which opened to $94.3 million as a relatively unknown property in 2014 and ended up grossing $773.3 million worldwide. G2, now sitting at $427.6 million cumulative after a $123 million international frame, is well on course to pass that. Reviews for this weeks box office champ are middling from most sources but an A Cinemascore should be enough to plant it on solid legs. It opened in China this weekend with $45 million and became the fourth best ever release for Marvel in the Middle Kingdom. Still in the Far East, a South Korea opening was worth $13.3 million and was enough to surpass the entire run of the original Guardians in just three days. Russia was fairly receptive as well with an $11.6 million launch there giving Marvel its third best opening in the territory. Another landmark came from its IMAX earnings. With showings on 1,088 screens, G2 has the largest ever release in its premium large format theatres. Those shows were worth $25 million worldwide which despite the record number of screens is only the fourth best IMAX opening to date.

Most studios stayed clear of pushing new properties in the path of this Marvel behemoth and the rest of the domestic top ten was made of holdovers. The Fate of the Furious finally started to show a bit of balance in its international versus domestic earnings after an $8.5 million fourth frame pushed it past $200 million at home. F8 has leaned heavily towards foreign numbers with fully $951.2 million of its $1.15 billion coming from abroad. Its biggest territory overall remains China where a $4.4 million fourth frame brought it to $381.8 million. It had a good second outing in Japan as well, taking $4.7 million to reach a local cume of $23.1 million. Furious 7’s $1.52 billion series benchmark seems out of reach for now but F8 should pass Minions’ $1.16 billion soon and establish itself as Universal’s third biggest earner of all time.

Next on the domestic chart was The Boss Baby, finishing its sixth week in US theatres on $6.1 million. Fox and DreamWorks’ Alec Baldwin led animated comedy finally crawled past $150 million and ended the frame on $156.7 million with $434.7 million worldwide. A South Korea launch made $7 million and helped push the film’s international earnings to $278.2 million.

Dropping down a few notches on the domestic chart, Indian international phenomenon Baahubali 2: The Conclusion finished its second week in the US with $3.2 million and in seventh place. Its US cume is now $16.2 million, from just 425 theatres, while the international total reached $147.3 million. At this pace Baa2 will almost certainly become India’s biggest movie of all time.

Next week we’ll keep track of Guardians and get a first look at Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, starring Charlie Hunnam and Jude Law. Also opening in the US is Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn comedy Snatched, and East LA set coming of age drama Lowriders.

See the latest world box office estimates: