Guardians of the Galaxy Won't Hold Onto #1 But It WIll Pass $300M Domestic/$600M Global This Weekend

The U.S. box office will continue to be slow this weekend -- but not as slow as last weekend, when a month-old movie took the #1 spot amid a bunch of competition that couldn't crack the $10 million barrier.

This week, it looks like Guardians of the Galaxy will make a little under $7 million and take the #3 spot...but that will be good enough to eclipse the $300 million mark at the domestic box office, making it the first film of the year to do so.

Globally, the movie is about $15 million away from the $600 million mark. Usually at this point in its run, that might be questionable, but in addition to $6.8 million from the U.S. and whatever else it would ordinarily rake in from around the world, the movie will open in Japan this weekend, where it's expected to do pretty well.

Projections, then, estimate that it will cross that mark globally, too, putting it within striking distance of Iron Man 2's global $625 million. Guardians of the Galaxy passed Iron Man's $585 million global haul this week and is on the way to passing its $312 million domestic haul to make it Marvel's biggest-ever franchise starter.

This week's #1 will likely be No Good Deed at $19 million, with Dolphin Tale 2 coming in around $17 million. That's slightly down from early projections for both films (which were expected to take $21 million and $19 million or so) but that's probably reflective of an anemic box office more than any problems with the movies themselves.

September 26 should see a somewhat revitalized U.S. box office, with both The Equalizer and The Boxtrolls hitting theaters that day.