Guardians of the Galaxy Opened 1 Year Ago Today

One year ago today saw the Guardians of the Galaxy take theaters by storm by introducing movie goers to a new team of Marvel Cosmic super heroes.

Led by James Gunn, Chris Pratt was introduced as Star-Lord, with Zoe Saldana as Gamora, WWE Superstar Dave Bautista played Drax, Doctor Who‘s Karen Gillan shaved her head for the nefarious Nebula, Lee Pace was the featured villain as Ronan, and Bradley Cooper voiced Rocket Raccoon with Vin Diesel voicing “I am” Groot.

The movie netted close to $40 million on its opening day and went on to break the August box office record with an opening of almost $100 million. Guardians of the Galaxy finished with a whopping $774 million worldwide giving it the fourth best performance for a Marvel Studios movie, only trailing The Avengers films and Iron Man 3.

Disney quickly announced a sequel for Guardians of the Galaxy and gave it a May 5, 2017 release.

James Gunn and Chris Pratt took to their social networks to remember the day.

James Gunn on Facebook:

One year ago today, Guardians of the Galaxy opened up in the U.S. and many places around the world. The movie massively over-performed that weekend, even by our own expectations, but what meant more to me is how much so many of you, no matter where you were from, took the story and the characters into your hearts. What meant more to me is that “We are Groot” became a rallying cry for unity among friends and families. What meant more to me is that you laughed at the dumb stuff I thought you’d miss, like “Cap’n’s gotta teach stuff” and “I was thinking of something else.” What meant more to me is that in our tenth week we were out-performing any comic book film in recent history – not because of the money, but because people were going back to see the film a second, third, fourth, fifth time, or more, because they loved it. What mattered to me is that after a lifetime of telling stories and half a lifetime making movies, I felt like you and I, filmmaker and audience, were at the same place at the same time.

It mattered to me mostly because I told a story fully with my heart, and you took it into yours. I don’t think I can ever explain how much that means to me. It makes every failure I’ve ever had well worth it.

I get a lot of messages from people saying, “You made me believe in movies again.” Well, you guys made me believe that what I spent my life doing was worth doing. And you strengthened my belief that nothing’s worth doing, if it’s not done honestly, and it’s not done with love.

On this, the one year anniversary of the cinematic Guardians entering our solar system: thank you, thank you, thank you.

We really are, truly, honestly Groot.

Love,

James

Chris Pratt on Twitter: