3. Guardians Of The Galaxy Pulls A Serenity: Critical Acclaim But Weak Box Office
James Gunn's upcoming Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy has already earned plenty of comparisons to Joss Whedon's series Firefly, which is a good thing for sci-fi fans, though not necessarily for the film's producers or Marvel Studios' bean-counters. Firefly was of course a cult classic TV show which did superb numbers on DVD, but when it came to the feature film, Serenity, didn't even manage to break even at the box office, stopping dead any chance of another movie or series. Guardians appears to have a similar tone and is even more weird, considering that one of the main characters is a talking raccoon, and another is a talking tree. Marvel Studios certainly have their work cut out for them marketing the movie, as though comic book fans will be sold from minute one, selling such a potentially goofy idea to the masses is going to require a real lightness of touch. Emphasising how it fits into the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be key moving forward, and though I expect the film will do well with critics, I also suspect it will just be too weird for mainstream audiences, and make between $200-250 million at the box office (against a $150 million budget).
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
