Guardians of the Galaxy Surpasses Transformers 4 Age of Extinction as #1 Grossing Summer Movie of 2014

Box Office Mojo reports that James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy has made a comeback and will surpass Transformers: Age of Extinction this weekend as the summer's top-grossing movie. Its estimated domestic take for the week is $17 million putting it at $251 million overall. This places it in third place just slightly behind The Lego Movie and Captain America: The Winter Soldier in the ranking of best domestic releases of the year. Keep reading for more details on GotG and TF4's totals to date!

Guardians overtook the Michael Bay-produced (not directed) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this weekend after sitting behind it in second place for the two weeks previous. While not unprecedented, it's unusual anymore for a film to have the kind of legs that GotG is displaying.

Meanwhile, with an overall domestic total of $243 million to date, Transformers 4 has little to cry about, especially when you take the international box office into account. Age of Extinction has made four times as much money worldwide as it has in the USA, winning the all-time record at the Chinese box office. With the increasing importance of the China in the world entertainment market, this is definitely a feather in Michael Bay's cap. On the other hand, Guardians has made slightly less worldwide than it has domestically.

If GotG loses less than half of its total box office next week, it should overtake Winter Soldier for top-earning film of the year. That would leave Disney with two of the top three and three of the top five, with The Lego Movie, Age of Extinction, and Maleficent in slots 3, 4, and 5 respectively. Internationally, however, Transformers holds the crown with an easy quarter-billion dollar lead.