Guardians of the Galaxy Box Office to Break At Least One Avengers Record

While Marvel's The Avengers was one of the highest-grossing films of all time and set a new standard for comic book adaptations that may not be equaled until Justice League is finally a reality, the surprise summer smash Guardians of the Galaxy will take down its bigger studio sibling in at least one major department: it will have taken the #1 spot at the box office in more weekends.

Earlier today, we noted that a fourth win (and third consecutive) for Guardians would break the record for the most #1 finishes this year, but Deadline ran the numbers again and noticed that no Marvel Studios film has ever finished #1 more than three times during its theatrical run.

Partly, that's because many of Marvel's movies are situated in the heat of the blockbuster season and even the Mighty Marvel Moneymaking Machine has a hard time staving off competition throughout the month of May. Partly, it has to do with the fact that Guardians came at the anemic tail end of a weak summer season at the multiplex...and, yes, that it has blown away pretty much any reasonable expectations.

The film is currently sitting on a $287 million domestic haul which makes it the top-grossing Marvel Studios movie without Iron Man in it. Iron Man 2, Iron Man, Iron Man 3 and Marvel's The Avengers are ahead of it (ascending in that order), and it's plausible (though not likely) that Guardians could rise as high as Iron Man, making it the top-grossing non-sequel in the Marvel family (most everyone considers The Avengers a sequel because it's a continuation of all those existing franchises. If you disagree with this position, that last distinction doesn't mean much to you).

Given the spectacular success and enduring appeal of Iron Man, it seems nearly impossible that Guardians would break into that part of the top five...but the first Iron Man film had, by this point, generated $288,847,640 -- about a million more than Guardians had through Friday and obviously less than it's expected to through the weekend.

Like Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man didn't have the kind of spectacular international box office take that established franchises seem to for Marvel -- it generated $585 million, about $150 million less than Captain America: The Winter Soldier did earlier this year and almost certainly less than Guardians (currently at $560 million and not yet open in China or Japan) will make. By the time the second movie came around, though, international audience had caught on and even the underwhelming Iron Man 2 made about $624 million worldwide on a smaller domestic haul than its predecessor.

Among Warner Bros./DC Entertainment films, The Dark Knight had a four-week reign in 2008.

Next week's box office projections haven't hit yet, but it's plausible that Guardians could hold on for a fourth consecutive (and fifth total) weekend at #1 if it can hold off competition from Dolphin Tale 2 and No Good Deed. That is, however, unlikely: Box Office Frontier projects both of those films to open in the neighborhood of $20 million.