Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is showing no signs of slowing down, easily topping its second weekend at the domestic box office. Marvel are already off to a strong start with the first of their three 2017 releases. While the new trend of spring blockbusters has meant a number of strong contenders have come forward in the past few months, Guardians 2 is already looking like one of the year’s top earners. Thanks to the success of the first film, both critically and financially, the new film is riding a wave of strong buzz and reviews, which have so far translated into strong box office numbers.

After debuting big internationally, Guardians 2 entered domestic theaters last weekend and pulled in a massive $145 million stateside. A few days later, and the total at home and abroad brought the film past the $500 million mark after less than two weeks at the global box office. Of course, as new films begin to premiere, there’s always the chance of Marvel’s cosmic caper losing steam as it reaches for the coveted $1 billion mark. So far, however, those fears have proven to be unfounded. After winning this Friday at the box office, Guardians 2 has claimed victory for the entire weekend once again.

BoxOffice are reporting that the estimated total for this weekend will send Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 over the $600 million mark globally once Sunday’s numbers are in and tallied with the rest. All told, the sequel is sitting at $246.1M domestic and $630.6M in total. After just a few weeks in theaters, that puts the new movie within spitting distance of its predecessors total of $773M.

At this point, it would have to take a serious amount of audience drop-off for Guardians 2 not to best the first film and it’s hard to imagine the movie will fail to reach $1 billion. Its only real competition this weekend was King Arthur, which proved to be a colossal failure around the world. Next week, however, will see the highly-anticipated Alien: Covenant hit theaters. With its debut, Guardians 2 will face an large hurdle.

Still, things are looking good for Marvel. With Guardians 2 on a strong path, analysts are already projecting July’s Spider-Man: Homecoming will land nearly the same opening. DC, meanwhile, will have a somewhat meeker opening for Wonder Woman next month as the first of their two 2017 releases.

Regardless of how Marvel and DC fare, however, Star Wars: The Last Jedi will likely take the crown when 2017 is said and done. Of course, that will still be a victory for Disney, who must be ecstatic about their foresight in purchasing Marvel and Lucasfilm when they did. When the receipts are counted, the picture of this weekend might change slightly. Regardless of the outcome, though, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is on a roll.

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