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Don鈥檛 be surprised if Marvel s Kevin <a href=http://www.avanttravel.com/page.php?sale=Elisa-Louboutin>Elisa Louboutin</a> Feige starts green-lighting movies based off mutant stick figures he sketches on the back of a cocktail napkin: The previously anonymous Guardians of the Galaxy is officially the summer鈥檚 biggest hit, and it should be the highest-grossing film (domestically) of 2014. Star-Lord finally swooped past Michael Bay鈥檚 Ninja Turtles and fire-breathing robosaurs to reclaim the top spot at the domestic box office ($17.6 million weekend gross) and the summer overall ($252 million and counting). Right now Guardians is set to pass both Captain America: The Winter Soldier鈥檚 and The Lego Movie鈥檚 grosses before Labor Day comes to a close. And there was much rejoicing among talking trees everywhere 鈥? 鈥?. The new films of this final major weekend of the summer opened with a resounding 鈥渂lah.鈥?(Labor Day weekend doesn鈥檛 count because kids are back at school and the rest of us are too busy licking those empty mojito pitchers.) Aside from TMNT and Guardians trading the no. 1 spot at the box office like Bushes and Clintons swapping the Oval Office, the new arrivals puttered onto the theatrical stage with less aplomb than a 12:54 . Quaffing down the last dregs of the summer鈥檚 young-adult craze, Chlo毛 Grace Moretz鈥檚 If I Stay didn鈥檛 quite meet expectations, with $16.33 million Thursday through Sunday, which is nowhere near the $48 million opening of industrial-strength tearjerker The Fault in Our Stars. But If I Stay cost a mere $11 million, which means it鈥檒l, like, still make money! It doesn鈥檛 need your judgment and overblown box office expectations, analysts. And it won鈥檛 buy into your shallow, materialistic notions of success. It鈥檚 going to go lock itself in its room and . But if you want to talk true disappointment, look no further than the tattooed, trench coat鈥搘earing Sin City 2, which had all the impact of a hard-boiled egg hitting a mattress. Turns out Frank Miller鈥檚 sequel was less a dame to kill for than a girl you might talk to after a <a href=http://www.avanttravel.com/page.php?sale=Michael-Kors-Mk8108>Michael Kors Mk8108</a> few more beers because this bar鈥檚 kind of dead anyway. With a $6.48 million opening off a $70 million budget, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For didn鈥檛 just bomb 鈥?it made a bomb like The Expendables 3 look young and handsome. The aging 鈥檙oid-age relic dropped like a rock its second weekend, but still beat Mickey Rourke and his enormous prosthetic jaw with a mere $6.6 million. (Don鈥檛 get cocky, Expendables 3! At $27.5 million, it鈥檚 taken you two weekends to gross what The Expendables 2 made in one.) Parading Eva Green around wasn鈥檛 enough to overcome even the faith-based, inspirational charms of When the Game Stands Tall, a.k.a. Soul Surfer on the gridiron. With its $9 million take, When the Game beat Sin City despite playing in 200 fewer theaters. Boyhood also kept its own inspirational running game up, earning another $1.8 million for a $16.5 million domestic total so far. While the weekend was up 19 percent compared with last year, the newbies provided that vaguely disappointing aftertaste to an already underwhelming summer. The summer domestic box office remains down a hefty 15 percent compared with 2013, and Hollywood as a whole is still off 5 percent for the year. Sure, international grosses continue to save the bottom line, but North America is still the biggest film market in the world, so taking a 15 percent <a href=http://www.avanttravel.com/page.php?sale=Tory-Burch-Leopard-Reva>Tory Burch Leopard Reva</a> hit during prime profit season never feels good. And while China boosted Transformers鈥?year-conquering gross, Hollywood sees less than a quarter of the $300 million it earned there, because China鈥檚 distributors take an outsize cut of the action. Since summer usually accounts for 40 percent of studio profits, it would take quite a one-two punch from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and The Hobbit: What鈥檚 the Unnecessarily Long After-Title 2 to fix this year鈥檚 broken box office. Of course, with the Venice, Telluride, and Toronto film festivals heralding the arrive of fall prestige season, the champagne-soaked Oscar buzz will put off Hollywood鈥檚 hangover until the end of the year. Until then, we鈥檒l just have to distract ourselves with whatever inevitably perplexed reviews of come out of Venice next week. That magic $300 million is actually a useful lens through which to look at the season. In 2012, five movies topped $300 million, and in 2013 four films cleared that hurdle, with Man of Steel not quite making it at $291 million. More important, 2012 saw four films cross the $1 billion mark worldwide, and in 2013 two films hit that magic number. As of summer鈥檚 close, only Transformers has topped $1 billion. Even Guardians is unlikely to clear that high-water mark, though it will probably hit that magic $300 million number at the domestic box office.