On its opening weekend in mainland China, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” earned $28 million at the box office, which is a respectable result given the current circumstances, but not exceptional. The film easily surpassed two weaker Chinese titles that had been released a week earlier to take advantage of the May Day holiday season. “Born to Fly,” a patriotic action adventure about Chinese test pilots, experienced a significant drop of 75% and fell from first place with a $40 million debut to third place with a $11.2 million second week. Its total earnings after two weekends are $77.3 million, according to data from Artisan Gateway.
The initial adoration for the Chinese love story “All These Years” rapidly diminished. After debuting in third place with a $18.7 million opening weekend, it dropped to fourth place in its second weekend with only $3.8 million, resulting in a 10-day total of $36.7 million.
The Chinese-produced comedy road trip film “Godspeed” is performing significantly better, maintaining its second-place position and earning $15.3 million in its second weekend. Its total earnings after ten days of release have reached $99.1 million.
Compared to the lackluster performance of Hollywood imports in China in 2022, this year sees a return to more typical business dealings. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” was recently approved for release in China, allowing for a well-planned marketing campaign and benefiting from a simultaneous release with North America and many other international territories.
In 2023, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” had the strongest Hollywood opening weekend, trailing only “Avatar: The Way of Water” in the past 16 months. Imax reported that the film earned $5.6 million, representing 19% of its China total. However, several Chinese films had larger openings with holiday assistance, and two Japanese animation titles had stronger non-holiday debuts in China this year. Hollywood’s return to China is proving to be a gradual process, and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is unlikely to match the success of its franchise predecessors, except for “Avatar 2.” Maoyan predicts that the movie will earn $74 million in China, compared to $86.3 million for the first “Guardians” film in 2014 and $101 million for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” in 2017.