When Is ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Coming to Disney+? Potential Release Date
Six years after the release of their latest standalone adventure, the team of Guardians of the Galaxy is finally set to conclude their MCU journey in James Gunn’s last Marvel movie — Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. All of our favorite space weirdos are back, and we’re excited to witness their Endgame when the movie hits theaters. However, it’s never too early to think about the future, so let’s look at when Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 is most likely to arrive on Disney+.
There’s no official information on when will Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 arrive on Disney+. Looking at Disney’s pattern of releasing previous MCU movies on Disney+, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will most likely arrive on the streaming service in July or early August of 2023.
Since it launched in November 2019, Disney+ quickly became one of the most popular streaming services. In the first quarter of 2023, Disney+ reported 161.8 million subscribers worldwide, making it the third biggest streaming service in general. Disney+ earned its recognition because of Disney’s animated content, but also because it holds all of Star Wars and the majority of Marvel content that was ever produced.
What is Disney’s pattern of releasing movies on their streaming service?
Although the pandemic of COVID-19 created some rough times for theaters around the world, streaming services blossomed at the same time; although streaming services’ business model can’t return the money invested in high-budget blockbusters, movie studios with their own streaming services decided to rather release movies on streaming services and in theaters (where available) than keep postponing the upcoming movies.
The MCU’s situation was even tougher because delaying only one movie means delaying a whole series of upcoming movies as well because of the connection most of these movies share.
Disney and Marvel Studios released Black Widow, the first movie of MCU’s Phase 4, to theaters and on Disney+ simultaneously, which even led to a lawsuit that Scarlett Johansson filled against Disney since she was contracted to earn a certain percentage of the box-office income.
The suit was settled two months later, and after time, Disney decided to release each new movie exclusively in theaters for some time before the premiere on Disney+. Let’s see how many days it took for each MCU movie to arrive on Disney+ after its premiere in theaters.
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — 71 days
- Eternals — 69 days
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — 48 days
- Thor: Love and Thunder — 63 days
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — 83 days
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — 90 days
Although Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness took only 48 days to premiere on Disney+ after its premiere in theaters, usually, it takes longer for successful movies at the box office to arrive at the streaming services because the studio wants to keep them in theaters for as long as possible (the best examples are Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water).
So, it’s interesting how Doctor Strange 2 arrived so fast, considering it is still the second highest-grossing MCU movie of the Multiverse Saga. Spider-Man: No Way Home is still the highest-grossing, but there’s a chance that Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 could come close to Mutliverse of Madness and maybe even surpass it.
How long we’ll wait for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 to arrive on Disney+?
Looking at Disney+’s release pattern of releasing MCU movies, the earliest we can expect Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 to arrive on Disney+ would be the first week of July, although it’s more likely that it will drop in either late July or early August. In the worst-case scenario, Disney might wait until the Disney+ day in September to release the movie on the streaming service.
It took 90 days for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to arrive on Disney+ after its premiere, and if we’re going to wait that long for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, that means we can’t expect the movie on Disney+ before August 5. When we take a closer look, the original Guardians of the Galaxy movie was released on August 1, 2014. So, how cool would it be for Disney to release Volume 3 on the ninth anniversary of the original movie’s release, to conclude that 9-year-long journey?
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 features an ensemble cast, including Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, and Sylvester Stallone. Written and directed by James Gunn, the movie will be released worldwide on May 5, 2023.
