"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" took the box office by storm over the weekend, raking in $145 million domestically – the sixth best opening weekend of all time for the month of May.
The film is the 15th to be released by Marvel Studios, and just like the others, it became No. 1 at the domestic box office on its first weekend in theaters, according to Business Insider.
The movie made $56 million Friday and $51 million Saturday. It was expected to make $140 million, according to Variety.
"We feel great. It is a spectacular number, period," Dave Hollis, Disney’s distribution chief, said about the movie exceeding expectations. "This is such a fresh and exciting film…it’s the kind of event that gets people excited about going to theaters."
The "escape thriller" – starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper – came into its opening weekend in the U.S. already having made over $100 million internationally in its opening weekend.
This comes after the original "Guardians" performed well at the box office in 2014.
At the time, it made more than $94 million when it opened domestically at the end of the summer, and when it was all said and done, the movie had made $333 million domestically and $440 million internationally.
"It’s all about strategy when it comes to Marvel and with ‘Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2,’ the notion of moving what was an August release for the first film to the key summer kick off spot in May clearly paid huge dividends for Disney," said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at comScore, according to Variety. "For this ‘Guardians’ to post the sixth best bow for the month is incredibly impressive given the Cinderella story of the title’s ascension from being a little known question mark of a movie, to a global phenomenon."
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