Guardians of the Galaxy: Regional Sell-Outs Of Blu-Ray Preorders at Wal-Mart

After leaving Guardians of the Galaxy late last night, fans who stumbled over to their local 24-hour Wal-Mart store in the hopes of pre-purchasing the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack might have been disappointed.

While nothing official has come out of the retailer, my anecdotal experience in Upstate New York indicated that both of the stores within 24 miles of my theater had sold completely out of the pre-purchase cards that give fans access to special Guardians digital features as well as a copy of the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack on the release date and a digital copy of the movie as soon as it's available on Ultraviolet.

That's fairly uncommon; movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Maleficent had not sold through their preorder allotment locally, and weeks or months later there are still cards on the shelves for them.

A random survey of 25 Wal-Mart stores in northeast indicated that more than two-thirds (18) of those stores had sold out of Guardians of the Galaxy presale offers. Nobody would speak on the record as to how that compared to previous presales, or how many copies of Guardians were ordered relative to bigger titles like The LEGO Movie and The Walking Dead Season Four.

Guardians of the Galaxy is breaking August records for movie ticket presales through online retailer Fandango. The film scored the best "early release" (Thursday) opening of the year with over $11 million last night (a million bucks better than Captain America: The Winter Solder) and is projected to take in around $70 million, which would give it the biggest opening weekend ever in August.