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"Star-Lord, you son of a bitch!"

The world came tantalizingly close to realizing the dream of a Burt Macklin movie this weekend as Chris Pratt took a major step from being a standout character on a cult sitcom to becoming a bona fide movie star with Guardians of the Galaxy. While the film based on a relatively obscure Marvel comic made waves with its bigger than expected domestic debut, it was no slouch overseas. In its debut, the James Gunn space opera took in $66.4 million from 42 territories. It had great first weekends in Russia and the U.K., in both cases opening higher than most of the pre-Avengers Marvel movies, and comparing favorably to most of its fellow Phase Two movies. That bodes very well for Marvel's first non-Avengers, non-sequel film since Thor opened back in 2011, and suggests that it'll have a good shot at beating Iron Man 2's international total of $311.5 million, and it might even take a swing at Thor: The Dark World's $438.4 million. Now if they can somehow work Aubrey Plaza into the second one then everything will be a-okay.

Last week's champion, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, earned $47.5 million, bringing its international total to $260 million. It still has Germany, Japan and China to come, all three of which were big markets for the previous Apes movie, so even with Star-Lord showing up to steal some of its thunder, the critically acclaimed sci-fi film still has a lot more money heading its way.

The third biggest film internationally this weekend was a Chinese film called White Haired Witch, which earned $40 million from six territories, and was closely followed by Roaring Currents, a South Korean thriller which took $30 million despite only playing in that country. Once again, Chinese and South Korean audiences demonstrate why they're the goose that lays the golden eggs of international box office.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 is fifth this week with $20 million, which gives it a running total of $296.7 million. It has now surpassed the total of the first film by just under $20 million, and I wouldn't be surprised if it earns another $100 million or so before all is said and done. Considering what a curious disappointment the film has been in the US, those numbers must be considerable comfort to DreamWorks, who have been searching for a signature franchise to replace Shrek for a while now and hoped to have found it in How To Train Your Dragon. In other "films doing worse in the US than might be expected, but working like gangbusters everywhere else" news, Transformers: Age of Extinction added $19.1 million, which takes its international take to a frankly gaudy $763.8 million, or more than the entire global take of the number two film of the year so far, X-Men: Days of Future Past. After adding the domestic numbers, Age of Extinction passed $1 billion globally, ensuring that this franchise remains frustratingly viable.

Chinese sensation Continent earned $17.1 million this week, good enough for the number seven spot, while Hercules took $14.2 million for a total so far of $56.5 million. That's pretty respectable if not spectacular, and suggests that the sword and sandals story from Brett Ratner will likely earn at least two, possibly three times more overseas than it will in the US. That won't completely remove the sting of that $100 million dollar price tag and the unknown costs of marketing, but it could turn it from a costly failure to a small bump in the road for everyone involved.

Ninth place belongs to a film called Girl Friends, a title so generic that I can't find any specific details about it. Anyway, it took $13 million, so someone out there must have seen it. Finally, we have The Purge: Anarchy, which earned $8.1 million for a total to date of $19.3 million. That might sound pretty mediocre, but it's worth noting that the first Purge only earned $24.8 million outside of the US last year, so for the sequel to have nearly matched that after two weeks is encouraging for this still young franchise, whose success has otherwise seemed very America-centric. Maybe the subsequent films in the series will try to expand the audience by showing us what Purging looks like around the world.