While Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania continues to crawl at the box office, the Marvel fandom has pointed its attention towards the upcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy instalment, starring Chris Pratt, Zoë Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Chukwudi Iwuji, and Will Poulter. The third Guardians of the Galaxy instalment is directed by James Gunn and produced by Kevin Feige.
Marvel Studios returned to Chinese theatres last month, with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever releasing on February 7, and Quantumania releasing as per schedule. This marked the first MCU movie to release in China after Spider-Man: Far From Home in June 2019. Geeks in China missed out on quite a lot of MCU movies, including Black Widow, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder. It seems that the studio intents to continue releasing future films in China, which contributed a considerable amount to the franchise’s box office in the past.
Marvel Studios went on Weibo to confirm that Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 will release nationwide in China and released a poster alongside it. However, the post did not reveal a release date for the movie (neither did the poster), which we can confirm now.
The universe group played the final swan song, we are [Guardians of the Galaxy] #银河护师3# will be screened nationwide
A janky translation of the original Marvel Studios post on Weibo
Watch The New ‘GOTG VOL. 3’ Promo
A new Chinese spot for the movie surfaced on the internet, which has been uploaded below.
Although the spot didn’t feature any new footage and was merely a 1-minute version of the main trailer, it isn’t the footage that matters here. The final frame of the spot confirms the release date of the movie to be May 3, 2023, for China; two days earlier than in the United States.
This comes shortly after the movie was confirmed to release in the UK and Ireland two days earlier than planned, on May 3, by Twitter user Tom Linay.
Although no official runtime for the movie has been released, we know that the film will be longer than the first two movies, as confirmed by James Gunn on Instagram. Guardians Of The Galaxy and the sequel had a runtime of 2 hours and 2 minutes and 2 hours and 17 minutes, which puts the threequel at a ~2.5-hour spot.
UPDATE 17/03/2023: James Gunn has officially confirmed that Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 will release in China on May 5, 2023.
You can read the official synopsis of the movie below:
In Marvel Studios “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” our beloved band of misfits are looking a bit different these days. Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him to defend the universe along with protecting one of their own. A mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.
Marvel Studios’ Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is set to release in theatres on May 5, 2023.
