Guardians Of The Galaxy Is Box Office Hit

Bradley Cooper is the voice of a racoon and Vin Diesel a tree-like humanoid

Guardians Of The Galaxy Is Box 

Office Hit

The latest Marvel superheroes to hit the silver screen are pulling in moviegoers, raking in record figures in the US in August.

By Bethany Minelle, Entertainment Producer

Hollywood blockbuster Guardians Of The Galaxy has smashed the long-standing record for August box office releases.

The Marvel Comics creation raked in $94m (£55.8m) last weekend in the US and an estimated £6.4m in the UK.

It has an ensemble cast that includes Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper and Chris Pratt, and ousted last week's number one earning sci-fi thriller, Lucy.

Actress Zoe Saldana plays a green-skinned assassin named Gamora who is fighting a gun-toting genetically-modified raccoon played by Cooper.

Diesel, who voiced tree-like humanoid Groot, had just three words of script to learn for the film: "I am Groot."

Guardians delivered the best ever UK opening for Marvel and the third biggest weekend box office for 2014 in the US.

It smashed the US August record by a third - outdoing the $69m (£41m) set by Bourne Ultimatum in 2007.

Its ranking for the year so far is also impressive, just behind Transformers 4's $97.5m (£57.9m) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier at $95m (£56.2m).

Internationally, it brought in a threefold increase for Imax screenings compared to the previous biggest film.

The success of Guardians has given Hollywood a sigh of relief, especially for a series of characters who were barely known by moviegoers this time last year.