Box Office for August 8-10: Turtles Slay Guardians

The following are estimates of the box-office earnings by movies this weekend.

 Guardians of the Galaxy was expected to hold the top for the second weekend in a row. But Ninja Turtle fans old and new showed up, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had one of the biggest August openings of all time. The largest is Guardians of the Galaxy with $94 million last week, and the second largest is The Bourne Ultimatum with $69 million, the previous record holder. The Ninja Turtles made $65 million this past weekend. It was expected to bring in something in the upper $30 million, which itself would be a good opening weekend, but $65 million is much better. The summer has been suffering from polarizing releases. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opened the summer, and opened high but with mixed reaction, it fell off the grid quickly. The same happened to Godzilla. Only X-Men: Days of Future Past has had huge numbers as well as massive critical acclaim before Guardians of the Galaxy. Transformers: Age of Extinction hit $1 billion worldwide, but was widely regarded by critics as one of the worst movies of the year. Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are setting the month up for the biggest August of all time, and with audience love, they may be the real hits of the summer movie season.

 Guardians of the Galaxy fell 56% to second place with $41 million. That's the biggest second weekend of the summer, and it's poised to quickly become the highest-grossing movie of the year so far domestically. So far it's made $176 million in just over one week of release, and is on track to close over $260 million.

Disaster movie Into the Storm opened in third place with $18 million. The film is suffering from poor reviews from critics (20% on Rotten Tomatoes) as well as poor audience reviews, so look for this film to quickly fall off the map. With no clear star, and an ad campaign that focused only on the effects, it's clear why this opened with much less than classic disaster films Twister and The Day After Tomorrow.

The Hundred-Foot Journey opened in fourth place with $11 million. For a family friendly movie opening the same week as the Ninja Turtles, that's not a bad first week. And with good reviews it should hold up nicely over the coming weeks. However, it won't achieve the honors of being the breakout drama of the summer, as past August releases The Help and The Butler successfully achieved.

Lucy rounded out the top five. It dropped 49% to $9 million. So far, it's made $97 million, and will pass $100 million this coming week. It looks on track to close in the $110-$120 million range.

 Step Up All In tanked with $6.6 million. The failing film franchise has dropped ever since the first film, which famously introduced the world to Channing Tatum. Step Up only made $65 million in the U.S. but internationally, that was only about 50% its total gross. Even international box-office probably can't save this movie, so look for it to be the last of the Step Up films.

Full Top 10

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- $65 million (debut)
2. Guardians of the Galaxy- $41 million (-56%)
3. Into the Storm- $18 million (debut)
4. The Hundred-Foot Journey- $11 million (debut)
5. Lucy- $9 million (-49%)
6. Step Up All In- $6.6 million (debut)
7. Hercules- $5.7 million (-48%)
8. Get On Up- $5 million (-63%)
9. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes- $4 million (-49%)
10. Planes: Fire and Rescue- $2.4 million (-60%)