Dave Bautista's Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 Leads Weekend Box Office With $114 Million

Outside of a WWE ring, Dave Bautista's wave of success isn't slowing down anytime soon. "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," which co-stars Bautista as Drax, brought in $114 million over the weekend to open at No. 1 in theaters. There was a lot of distance from the latest Marvel offering and the rest of the box office charts. "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" registered $18.6 million in receipts in its fifth week for the No. 2 spot while the remainder of the top five — "Evil Dead Rise" ($5.73 million), "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" ($3.38 million), and "Love Again" ($2.43 million) — finished well behind.

Formerly a six-time world champion in WWE, Bautista's breakout performance in Hollywood began with the introduction of the Guardians of the Galaxy into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2014. In the years since, he's reprised his role as Drax seven more times across the Marvel Cinematic Universe through two "Guardians" sequels, two "Avengers" movies, and "Thor: Love and Thunder," in addition to an MCU short and a holiday special.

While the $114 million haul from "Vol. 3" over the weekend is higher than 2014's opening weekend of $94.3 million, it rests firmly in the middle of the trilogy altogether. "Vol. 2" brought in $146.5 million in 2017 comparatively. 

Leading up to this weekend's theatrical release, Bautista had expressed a relief that he'd be leaving Drax behind in order to pursue more dramatic roles. Bautista had recently been in production on the "My Spy" sequel — "The Eternal City" for Amazon.