Stellar box office debut for Guardians of the Galaxy

Movie Still: Guardians Of The Galaxy. -- PHOTO: WALT DISNEY PICTURES
Movie Still: Guardians Of The Galaxy. -- PHOTO: WALT DISNEY PICTURES

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest Marvel superhero flick, stormed the North American box office over the weekend, taking in a whopping US$94.3 million (S$117.5 million), industry figures showed on Monday.

With an ensemble cast that includes Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Chris Pratt, Guardians easily bested last week's number one earner, sci-fi thriller Lucy, which sank to second place with a weekend gross of nearly US$18.3 million, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Get On Up, a biopic about US soul singer James Brown, debuted in third place with nearly US$14 million in ticket sales.

In fourth place at US$11 million was big-budget action film Hercules, starring Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. It dropped two places from last week.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the critically praised latest instalment in the sci-fi film series about apes co-existing with humans, drew US$8.7 million for fifth place.

Disney's Planes: Fire & Rescue, the computer-animated movie about a talking plane that helps firefighters save a national park, made US$6 million, leaving it in sixth place.

Horror sequel The Purge: Anarchy, meanwhile, dropped to seventh place at US$5.9 million.

Sex Tape, a comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel as parents frantic to keep their sex tape off the Internet, was number eight, pulling in US$3.5 million.

Not far behind in ninth with US$3.3 million in receipts was And So It Goes, a romantic comedy starring Oscar winners Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton.

A Most Wanted Man, a spy thriller with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his last performances, held to 10th place in its second week in theatres, earning US$3.2 million.

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