I don't find Guardians' success all that surprising and as much of a gamble by Marvel Studios as many people hype it up to be. Marvel Studios is obviously one of the biggest studios in the world now, especially after Avengers, now anything they make will turn to gold no matter what pretty much. As long as it isn't atrociously bad, then it should make very good money.

Great article with some great points!

Personally I think I agree that Marvel is a pretty big powerhouse, but I don't think that is entirely what saved Guardians. I think marketing played a huge role in it too. I read comics, but never really paid much attention to this one. Even the people making it never read the comics, as they've admitted.

Even with Marvels name attached to it I was still going "ehh, sounds alright" right up until they started showing it off. First it was looking like a big action movie, so meh. Then they made it funny, and more funny, and more entertaining, until it got to a point of "I really want to see that!" Right before we saw it my girlfriend even went "when we first saw the trailer it looked really lame, but it looks funny now!"

The biggest lesson of all? We are all Groot. *sniff, sniff*

I'm not gonna lie, from the commercials and trailers leading up to the movie I thought it was gonna be corny. It has probably been the best action movie I've seen since the spring. Godzilla is now 2nd. This movie was pretty funny and the CG was on point.

I was impressed.