“King Arthur” and “Snatched” to Battle at the Box Office While “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” Continues to Reign

	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2	$64 million
	Snatched	$21 million
	King Arthur: Legend of the Sword	$20 million
	The Fate of the Furious	$4.7 million
	The Boss Baby	$3.5 million

Likely surprising no one, Disney and Marvel’s latest outing, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will remain on top at the box office for a second week in a row as no newcomers will pose a big enough threat to topple it. So far the film has proven to be just as successful as everyone was expecting — and hoping — it would be. In less than two weeks, the film is almost to $200 million. After this weekend, the film will leap from the fourteenth-highest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) into the top ten. The first Guardians film grossed $333 million domestically when all was said and done, currently the fifth-highest film in the MCU, and if its sequel continues at the rate it’s going at so far, it should be able to top its predecessor.

Worldwide, it has grossed just over $500 million worldwide, putting it on a good path to becoming the third film of the year to reach $1 billion. It’s the twelfth-highest film in the MCU for global grosses and should it reach the coveted $1 billion mark, it will surpass its predecessor, currently the fifth-highest film in the franchise worldwide. Many people expected this film to do this well. While the first film may have been a riskier movie for the studio, the positive response to it all but assured the sequel’s success, further proving that audiences aren’t nearly ready to give in to superhero fatigue anytime soon.

	Opening Weekend	Current Gross	Facebook Likes	Tweets
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2	$146.5m	$175.9m	28,245	344,820
Snatched	N/A	N/A	55,303	5,588
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword	N/A	N/A	296,177	45,132
The Fate of the Furious	$98.7m	$209.2m	21,405	71,535
The Boss Baby	$50.1m	$157.5m	23,736	23,865

Despite Guardians’ continued domination of the box office this weekend, that isn’t where the excitement truly lies because in second and third place will be a close race between newcomer films Snatched and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. The former is a broad comedy starring Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, while the latter is Guy Ritchie’s latest take on a well-known figure, turning said figure into a scrappy underdog. Neither are earning very good reviews and while their positions could easily change, my money’s on Snatched doing slightly better than King Arthur simply because it’s a mother-daughter film coming out on Mother’s Day weekend, comedies typically have wider appeal, and all anyone can talk about with King Arthur is how bad it looks.

20th Century Fox

Schumer is a polarizing figure in the entertainment world — she has plenty of fans, but also plenty of people who don’t care for her style of comedy. Still, her last big film, 2015’s Trainwreck opened to $30 million and went on to make $110 million. Besides, even if people don’t love Schumer as much, Goldie Hawn has much more universal adoration and has been receiving the best reviews for the film. There’s a chance audiences will want to see her on the big screen, especially since the last time this happened was 2002’s The Banger Sisters, which only made $30 million. Comedies have a very specific appeal and perhaps this weekend audiences will simply want to laugh, even if Snatched isn’t going to be the best comedy ever made.

Despite all that, there’s also an audience for King Arthur. After all, Ritchie’s specific style as a director does have some fans, or his career would have been over years ago. His last film, 2015’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. didn’t do very well financially (it made $45 million), but it certainly got better reviews than King Arthur (it received a 67 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and certainly fans of that film and Ritchie’s overall trajectory as a director may be more interested in King Arthur than the average theater-goer. On the more cynical side of things, people may certainly go see King Arthur, fully expecting it to be bad and wanting to revel in that. Again, it’s a cynical take, but at least it gets the film money.

	Rotten Tomatoes		IMDb	Metacritic
	Critics	Users	Stars
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2	81	90	8.1	67
Snatched	38	N/A	2.2	47
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword	21	N/A	7.2	40
The Fate of the Furious	67	78	7.2	56
The Boss Baby	53	58	6.5	50

Rounding out the top five for the weekend will be holdovers The Fate of the Furious and The Boss Baby. The former is looking at another drop around 50 percent or so, slowing its domestic intake drastically, but its foreign numbers are still going strong. The film, now at $1.166 billion remains hot on the heels of Beauty and the Beast at $1.187 billion, and is the twelfth-highest film in the world of all time. Meanwhile The Boss Baby continues its journey as one of DreamWorks Animation’s more successful films. It’s certainly no Shrek but at $157.5 million so far (and $439 million worldwide), it’s doing well for the studio.

(Sources: boxoffice.com, boxofficemojo.com, rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, metacritic.com. Tweets and Likes represent figures for this week only. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed. Tracking Board does not report Rotten Tomatoes user ratings for movies that have not yet seen wide release.)

Anya Crittenton | Associate Editor