Washington - ’Guardians of the Galaxy’, the Marvel comics superhero flick, stormed the top of the box office, taking in $94 million (over R1bn) over the weekend, industry estimates showed on Sunday.
With an ensemble cast that includes Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Chris Pratt, ’Guardians’ bested last week's number one earner, sci-fi thriller ’Lucy’, which sank to second place with a weekend gross of nearly $18.3 million, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
’Get on Up’, also in its first weekend out, piled up $14 million, putting the biopic about the life of US soul singer James Brown in third place.
In fourth place with weekend results of $10.7 million was ’Hercules’, starring Dwayne ’The Rock’ Johnson. It dropped two places from last week.
Number five was ’Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’, a critically praised sequel that pits apes against humans in a collapsed civilization. It drew $8.7 million in its fourth weekend in cinemas.
Disney's ’Planes: Fire & Rescue’, the computer-animated movie about a talking plane that helps firefighters save a national park, made $6.4 million, leaving it in sixth place.
Horror flick ’The Purge: Anarchy’, meanwhile, dropped two notches to seventh place with a weekend box office total of $5.5
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 $3.5 million.
Not far behind in ninth with $3.3 million in receipts was ’And So It Goes’, a romantic comedy with 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 cinemas, earning $3.3 million. - Sapa-AFP