After weeks of headlines about the struggling summer box office, this weekend brought us a different story.
Disney and Marvel's highly-awaited "Guardians of the Galaxy" opened up this weekend, shattering the all-time record for a debut weekend in August by racking up $94 million in ticket sales. (Via Walt Disney Motion Pictures / "Guardians of the Galaxy")
As Forbes reports, it broke the $69.3 million record The Bourne Ultimatum set back in August of 2007. It's also the third best opening weekend of the entire year.
Which is great news for the film which Entertainment Weekly said was looking to achieve "a cosmic debut." Even better news — it made about $30 million more than what the outlet reported was expected.
This comes as the film industry is having one of its worst summer performances in about a decade.
CNN has called this year a "summer bummer," with ticket sales down about 20 percent compared to last summer.
And The Hollywood Reporter says it's the worst summer in eight years and adds its the first year a movie hasn't surpassed the $300 million mark since 2001.
The summer still isn't over quite yet. CNBC was one of several outlets wondering whether "Guardians of the Galaxy" would save the summer box office or even at least turn the tide. Still, IMAX's CEO says people shouldn't look into the numbers too deeply.
"The movie business has been around for over a hundred years — there are good years and there are bad years. Every time there are two good movies in a row, everybody says it's back. And when they say there are two bad movies in a row, they say the movie business is over."
Looking ahead, it's not all doom and gloom. Variety notes several highly-anticipated additions to series like Star Wars, James Bond and the Avengers are expected to come out in 2015 and be successful.
"Guardians of the Galaxy" beat its next closest competitor "Lucy" by nearly $80 million. Disney and Marvel have already announced plans for a sequel slated for 2017.