The Marvel franchise critics once called too-minor and too-goofy to succeed has upped the ante yet again. Guardians of the Galaxy has surpassed The Lego Movie and Captain America: The Winter Soldier to become the highest-grossing movie of the year at the domestic box office.


It's been a hell of a month for Guardians of the Galaxy. Thirty days ago, the film crushed box office records with the biggest August opening of all time. Soon thereafter, it outpaced Transformers to set a new 10-day box office record. A week ago, the film recovered from a one-weekend coup by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to reclaim the pole position at the box office. And yesterday, with the end of August still days away, GOTG retained its number-one standing while pulling in an estimated $3.8-million, bringing its total domestic haul to $262.1-million. In doing so, GotG has overtaken frontrunners The Lego Movie (now at #3 for 2014, with $257.75-million) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (now sitting second, at $259.77-million).


Oh, also, somewhere along the way GotG's soundtrack became the #1 album in America (according to Billboard, the first soundtrack in history to reach number one that was comprised entirely of previously released songs).

The movie shows no signs of slowing down. Conservative estimates put GotG on pace to become the first film of 2014 to break $300-million at the domestic box office. Some have it closing with as much as $320-million. Meanwhile, overall box-office revenues are down 15% from last year; notwithstanding the sizable boost from GotG, Hollywood is well on its way to having its worst summer haul in nearly a decade.


What can we take away from all this? A lot, actually. But the biggest lesson of all may be that superhero movies can and should be fun. Are you taking notes, DC? We still want to see superhero movies that make us laugh.