Audiences dug the colorful “class clown” of the Marvel universe, Guardians of the Galaxy, which easily took the weekend with $94 million for the best August debut ever. Along with overseas receipts, the film brought in a grand haul of $160.4 million. The film beat last week’s winner, the Luc Besson–Scarlett Johannson thriller Lucy, which took second with $18.3 million. The PG-13 James Brown biopic, Get on Up, debuted with a modest $14 million, recouping about half of its $30 million production costs. Hercules came in fourth with $10.7 million, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes came in fifth with $8.7 million, bringing its grand total stateside to $189.3 million. Anyway, Marvel must be feeling good about green-lighting the sequel for Guardians. Get ready for a lot more Groot puns.
