EXCLUSIVE: Distribution sources tell us that disney wonder James Gunn’s latest film from the studios, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, goes around $14M in the previews. As we always say, it can increase or decrease in the morning. Thursday previews started at 3 p.m. and there were 100 Imax shows on Wednesday. Attention, these figurines do not come from Disney.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’

Disney/Marvel

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 posted $17 million on Thursday night, up 30% from its first Friday of $56 million, en route to an opening weekend of $146.5 million. The first two guardians of the galaxy movies got a CinemaScores,

That said, the projections on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 were wild. When first tracked three weeks ago it was $130 million, then it was lowered to $110 million, then I heard an estimate from an exhibitor today that was even lower and indescribable . Let’s play this image. The global outlook is $250 million. Keep in mind that Marvel movies can still be preloaded. While reviews settled at around 79% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest of the trilogy (after the first movie’s 92% Certified Fresh and 85% Certified Fresh), GOTG3The current audience score of is 97% on RT (the first movie of 2014 got an audience score of 92% on RT, while GOTG2 was less than 87%). Presale of tickets for GOTG3I hear, have resumed and are approaching the threshold of 37 million dollars which Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania had Thursday night before a 3-day, $106.1 million and 4-day opening of $120.3 million.

We also hear that 62% of GOTG3Presales are for tonight or tomorrow. That’s encouraging when juxtaposed with the 65%-71% pre-sales tied to the first Thursday/Friday of the last four Marvel movies.

© Universal Pictures / Courtesy of Everett Collection

Meanwhile, Illumination/Universal/Nintendo Super Mario Bros. Movie will cross the $500 million score tonight or tomorrow. Wednesday was $1.98 million, bringing the video game feature to $498 million. That will be 30-31 days for the half-billion photo in the United States. Pixar Incredibles 2 accomplished this feat at the box office in 24 days, still the fastest for an animated film. Super Mario Bros. will be the second fastest at half a billion in the United States at its own pace. After the pandemic, Super Mario Bros. will be the fourth film to cross $500 million after Spider-Man: No Coming Home ($814.1 million), Top Gun: Maverick ($718.7M) and Avatar: The Way of the Water ($683.9 million).