GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY"Guardians of the Galaxy" had a big opening weekend, with early estimates from Box Office Mojo stating the film brought in $94 million at the box office, making it both the biggest August debut ever, as well as almost on par with "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (which earned $95 million domestic in its first weekend). According to Box Office Mojo, the film's audience was 44 percent female, and 3D showings accounted for 45 percent of the domestic ticket sales.

Director James Gunn took to Facebook to express his thanks to fans who saw -- or will see -- "Guardians of the Galaxy" in theaters. It's included in full below.

Thanks to all of you who saw (and are seeing) Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend, from the bottom of my heart. The Guardians are a group of oddballs, outcasts, and geeks. The movie is for anyone who ever felt cast aside, left out, or different. It's for all of us who don't belong. This movie belongs to you. And, today, I think we're doing okay.

I am of course happy with all the film has accomplished box-office-wise. But what touches me the most is that the film I told the folks at Marvel I wanted to make two years ago is the film that you're seeing in theaters today - it's that so many of you seem to be directly EXPERIENCING the film I INTENDED. The cast, the producers, the crew, and I felt like we were making something special while we were making it. But it is very rare that a director's INTENTIONS in creating a film, or a scene, or a character, or a line of dialogue are, seemingly, specifically what is experienced by an audience (not to mention critics!), and that seems to be what has happened here. You have allowed a talking raccoon - for a moment, a minute, or a day - to make you a little more human. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.

If I relied on myself to implement these intentions, the film would be a shambling mess. But instead, I had a wonderful cast, genius producers, an incredibly brave studio, sublimely talented visual effects artists, great editors, and the best damn crew of mostly-British bastards to actually implement these intentions for me. Where I had a good idea they would, through alchemy, transform it into a great one. Many of you involved are friends of mine on Facebook. Many of you will read this somewhere else. I love you all.

You may remember me posting here a couple weeks ago how sad I was to be finishing up the film, that I was having trouble letting go of Rocket, and that I was going to miss him. But seeing him (and Groot, and the rest of the team) embraced by the world like they have been, to be UNDERSTOOD, makes it a wonderful letting go. It's like giving a foster pet up for adoption to the most wonderful parents in the world.

And, of course, I'm not really saying goodbye as, while many of you have been enjoying the film, I've spent this weekend hard at work on the sequel. I couldn't help myself! The results are nice but it's really the creative process I love and that keeps me going. I'm on fire with this thing! The Guardians have so many hardships and heartaches and triumphs ahead of them, and I can't wait to share them with all of you.

Onto week two...

Love, James

Gunn also spoke with /Film about the many Easter eggs in the films -- especially in The Collector's big scene.

"Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff in the Collector's Museum," Gunn told /Film. "And for me, it was mostly just really fun. As a Marvel fan, giving the actual fans something that they can freeze frame on their Blu-Ray at home and just kind of pick out everything that's in there. So there are, I mean, seriously all those boxes have something interesting in them, so it's pretty fun."

Finally, Marvel has released the official LEGO poster for "Guardians of the Galaxy. Check it out -- compared with the original "Guardians of the Galaxy" poster -- below.

Now in theaters

MARVEL STUDIOSKevin Feige spoke with CBR News about a number of Marvel Studios topics including the concept of a female-led Marvel film and how close the Studio is to making it a reality.

"I think it comes down to timing, which is what I've sort of always said, and it comes down to us being able to tell the right story," Feige said. "I very much believe in doing it. I very much believe that it's unfair to say, 'People don't want to see movies with female heroes,' then list five movies that were not very good, therefore, people didn't go to the movies because they weren't good movies, versus [because] they were female leads. And they don't mention 'Hunger Games,' 'Frozen,' 'Divergent.' You can go back to 'Kill Bill' or 'Aliens.' These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done. I hope we do it sooner rather than later. But we find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most people have -- which is a very, very good thing and we don't take for granted, but is a challenging thing. You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that's because just the timing worked on what was sort of gearing up. But it does mean you have to put one franchise on hold for three or four years in order to introduce a new one? I don't know. Those are the kinds of chess matches we're playing right now."

GHOSTBUSTERSThe Wrap reports that as Sony struggles with bringing "Ghostbusters 3" to fruition, it may be considering an all-female reboot of the entire franchise. Reportedly, it would be written, directed and produced by "Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig. This is, of course, only a rumor at present and not much more is offered in the article other than speculation.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLESCinemaBlend attended a press conference for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," during which Megan Fox addressed the backlash against the film online in response to a question.

"Let me tell you something about those people. How much money did 'Transformers 4' make? Exactly. Those people can complain -- they all go to the theater," Fox told reporters. "They're gonna love it -- and if they don't love it, they can fuck off, and that's the end of that."

Opens Friday

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FORJoBlo has posted about nine minutes of B-roll footage for "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For." As expected, it's a lot of green screen behind actors and set pieces -- but still pretty cool to see how they accomplished the shots.

Opens August 22

CONSTANTINEGeoff Johns took to Twitter to tease some of the other DC Universe connections in "Constantine."

"@NBCConstantine: Parallel planes of existence. #Constantine pic.twitter.com/uINDaBLzzf" Look close behind the helmet of Fate...- Geoff Johns (@geoffjohns) August 3, 2014

Debuts this Fall on NBC

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