Blowing previous contenders and estimates out of the sky, “Guardians of the Galaxy” hit over $94 million over the weekend. The closest contender was “The Bourne Ultimatum” back in 2007 at $69 million. For a little more perspective this new entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe barely made less than the Captain America sequel and almost ten million more than the Thor sequel. It beat this years Spider-Man and X-Men flicks. Marvel gets shit done, it took something a lot of people didn’t think would work and made it a rousing success. The other new opening was the James Brown biopic “Get On Up” which made $13.5 million which was good enough for 3rd place.
- Guardians of the Galaxy: $94,320,883 for the team, taking him biggest August and biggest Thursday of the year.
- Lucy: With a 58% drop down to $18,252,590 Scarjo is looking good at almost $80 million domestic gross.
- Get On Up: James Brown pulled in $13,585,915 and came out at kind of an odd time, without much marketing.
- Hercules: A massive 63% fall of down to $11,010,367 for Rock and Ratner.
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Strong competition brought this one down another 48% to $8,690,314 and just shy of $190 domestic gross.
Next week we learn how willing people are to watch what looks like a “Twister” remake and turtles with lips, I’ll tell ya I’m torn on the turtles.
A quick note on budgets and dollar figures:
Films making back their budgets is a good sign, but that is just the money to film. It doesn’t include distribution and marketing. Marketing can cost as much as a film. That big Superbowl spot is spendy. So take that into account when judging a films success. Hitting $100 million isn’t the same as it once was.
All dollar amounts in the top 5 come from estimates based on ticket sales unless noted otherwise. Occasionally this article will be published when actual results come out, which is usually late Monday afternoon. For more about this and other ins and outs of movie tracking click here.