Guardians of the Galaxy breaks record with $94 million haul in opening weekend

A couple days ago, we brought word that Guardians of the Galaxy, which hit theaters nationwide this past Thursday night, was already a big box office hit, bringing in $11.2 million in its first night of release. After such a strong debut, adjusted projections placed it at pulling in something close to $100 million domestically for the weekend.

Sure enough, it earned $94 million for the weekend, which smashes the previous record for an August release.

The Hollywood Reporter has more on its success:

Overseas, Guardians also dazzled, debuting to $66.4 million in 42 markets for a global opening of $160.4 million. It's only playing in 50 percent of the foreign marketplace, and saw big numbers in Russia ($13 million), the U.K. ($10.8 million), Mexico ($6.5 million) and Brazil ($5.4 million).

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Heading into the weekend, Guardians was projected to gross $65 million to $70 million in its domestic debut. Males made up the majority of the audience (56 percent), and especially older teens and young adult men, a coveted demo that is getting harder and harder for Hollywood to please (46 percent of the audience was between the ages of 17 and 34). Fittingly, Imax theaters delivered $17 million globally, an August best.

As we've mentioned, Batista has been earning rave reviews for his turn as Drax the Destroyer, a role he will reprise for the sequel that has already been announced. That will come out in 2017.

We better enjoy him while he's still a pro wrestler. After this, he's a bonafide movie star.

Deal with it.