The guardians reclaim top spot from the turtles

James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy has garnered a whopping $252 million since its opening.


Reuters August 25, 2014

LOS ANGELES:


Marvel’s hit space adventure Guardians of the Galaxy returned to win the domestic box office race in its fourth week of release, slaying the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and ending the oversized reptiles’ two-week reign at the top of the charts.


Guardians, which also became the highest-grossing movie of the summer, sold $17.6 million worth of tickets at the United States and Canadian theatres for three days starting on Friday. Turtles took in $16.8 million in its third weekend to take second place. If I Stay, a film about a 17-year-old in coma and clinging to life, ranked third with $16.4 million.

But Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, the new, stylised sequel to the 2005 film based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel series, landed in a distant No. 8 spot with just $6.5 million. Guardians of the Galaxy, which features a machine gun-shooting raccoon and other extraterrestrial misfits, has collected $252 million since opening on August 1, making it the summer’s biggest box-office hit, according to Rentrak. In doing so, it has surpassed Transformers: Age of Extinction.

“The momentum has been very strong throughout the run,” said Walt Disney Studios’ head of distribution Dave Hollis, “starting with our opening that was much bigger than we anticipated.” Hollis said positive word-of-mouth and repeat viewership has helped drive the box office for a film that also features “great characters and a spectacular story.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which opened on August 8, has taken in more than $145 million at North American (US and Canadian) box offices. Made for a modest $11 million, the film received mixed reviews from critics, getting only 33 ‘fresh’ reviews out of 81, according to Rotten Tomatoes, and fell shy of industry estimates for a $21 million opening weekend.

The R-rated comedy Lets Be Cops took in $11 million for fourth place while When the Game Stands Tall, a low-budget football film opened in fifth place with $9.1 million. It follows weak openings by sport-themed films such as Million Dollar Arm and Draft Day.

Director Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For features the same stark black-and-white cinematography as 2005’s Sin City, which generated $74.1 million in sales including $29 million in its opening weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. The sequel saw mixed reviews with a 44 score from the site Metacritic, with 22 mixed reviews out of 36 tallied, and fell far short of expectations for an opening around $16.5 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26th, 2014.

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