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'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' trailer: how first movie affected Hollywood

A trailer has been released for the upcoming 'Guardians' sequel, which will debut this May. The original 2014 movie's success offered a boost to both Marvel and the increasingly wide blockbuster calendar.

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Disney – Marvel/AP
'Guardians of the Galaxy' stars (from l.) Zoe Saldana, Chris Pratt, and Dave Bautista.

A new trailer has been released for the upcoming superhero movie sequel “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” which will be released three years after the first film became a big success. 

The new trailer includes the song “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede, which was featured on the soundtrack of the first film. The “Guardians” soundtrack, which consisted of songs mostly originating from the 1970s, became a big hit, occupying the top spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart for multiple weeks. 

The “Guardians Vol. 2” trailer includes glimpses of Gamora (Zoe Saldana) appearing to prepare for battle, Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) taking flight and piloting his ship, and Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) consoling Star-Lord when Star-Lord is apparently struggling in his romance with Gamora. 

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The film will be released this May. 

The “Guardians” films are released by Marvel Studios, the company behind some of the most recent superhero hits. When “Guardians” was announced, the story, which centers on a ragtag team of space superheroes – including a talking raccoon (Rocket Raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper) and a being similar to a tree (Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel) – was viewed as an oddball one for the studio. 

But the humorous film, which was released in early August, became a big hit for Marvel. “Guardians” is still the domestically fifth-highest-grossing movie released by the studio, coming in ahead of such fellow Marvel hits as the first two “Iron Man” movies and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

The success of “Guardians” is still affecting the superhero movie genre and blockbuster films in general. Variety writer Brent Lang wrote following its success that the movie “may be the most important film in Marvel Studios’ history … [its opening weekend] demonstrated that the company has figured out a way to push second-tier superheroes to perform like A-list brands.” 

The average moviegoer would recognize the name Batman or Spider-Man, but most likely didn’t know who Star-Lord or Gamora was. But that didn’t matter. Moviegoers trusted Marvel. 

The success of “Guardians” has had implications for blockbusters in general as well, wrote Pamela McClintock of the Hollywood Reporter. “Marvel Studios and Disney circumvented the rules by going outside the traditional May-July corridor to launch ‘Guardians,’ which opened to record-breaking numbers,” Ms. McClintock wrote.

The success of “Guardians” didn’t mean the blockbuster summer movie season was a thing of the past, however. “Still, the biggest superhero movies are destined for May, June and July – at least for the time being,” she wrote, noting the then-upcoming release dates of May 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and the 2018 film “Avengers: Infinity War,” which is also scheduled to be released in May.

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