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Another weekend, another chance to reinforce just how important Chinese box office is for pretty much every studio these days. This week, we've got not one, not two, but three films whose placing is almost solely dependent on how well they've done in China, with two of those being re-entries for films that seemed to be all played out.

But before we get to those, let's talk about our number one film, Annabelle. The horror film earned $26.5 million this weekend, $11.7 came from a huge opening weekend in Mexico, where it broke that country's record for highest opening for a horror film. It has now amassed $126.7 million from overseas audiences, which compares very favorably to the $180.6 million that The Conjuring earned last year.

After a few weeks away from the chart, Lucy makes a shocking return to the top ten with $19.6 million, almost all of which came from an impressive opening weekend in, you guessed it, China. The Luc Besson action film has now earned $307.6 million internationally, and a scorching $434 million globally. It now looks likely to finish with just short of half a billion dollars thanks to this late boost, which is merely the latest flourish from a film that has constantly exceeded expectations.

Gone Girl continues to play well overseas, confirming that international audiences are just as keen to watch Ben Affleck be put through the ringer as American ones are. (I may have misunderstood the appeal of the film, or may be letting my dislike of Jersey Girl cloud my judgment.) The David Fincher film, which is only a potential awards contender but an undeniable smash, earned $18.4 million and has a total so far of $118.2 million. It still has a long way to go before it overtakes the $227.2 million Se7en earned way back in 1995 to become Fincher's biggest international hit, but I wouldn't put anything past Amazing Amy.

Continuing its run of doing sorta kinda okay is Dracula Untold, which earned $14.7 million and settles for fourth this weekend. Drac's North American box office burned up quicker than a vampire in the Sahara, but international audiences have provided something of a salve for a production that has been kind of lost in the shuffle over the last few weeks. It has earned a total of $117.7 million so far.

Our second film to make a comeback thanks to China is Hercules, which continues to be overshadowed by Lucy long after the latter beat it to the number one spot in the US. The vehicle for The Rock and his almost cartoonishly impressive physique debuted in China and Japan and took $10.9 million, which is okay but not great. Still, that pushes its total to $165.5 million and makes it increasingly likely it will become Brett Ratner's fourth film to earn at least $250 million worldwide. As with Dracula Untold, this is less a success story than it is one of a project inching further and further away from being declared an out and out disaster.

Teenage Mutant Turtles is sixth this week. The heroes in a half-shell continued to demonstrate that "turtle power" is just Hollywood code for "brand recognition and nostalgia", as they took in $10.8 million. To date, the Michael Bay-produced reboot has earned $201.9 million from international audiences, and could easily add on another $100 million once it opens in China next weekend.

Guardians of the Galaxy continued its slow, steady rise to the upper echelons of 2014 global box office. The space opera added $10.3 million for a running total of $424 million, and pushed its global total to $752.6 million. By this time next weekend, it should have easily surpassed Maleficent's $757.3 million to become the second biggest global hit of the year, a position that it will hold for all of a month until Katniss Everdeen knocks Star-Lord down a peg.

The bottom rungs comprise a pair of films at the start of modest runs and one nearing the end of a very respectable one. The Book of Life earned $7.8 million, which brings its running total to $18 million after two weeks. That's pretty low for an animated feature, but it's worth noting that it doesn't have the name recognition of a Pixar or DreamWorks behind it, and it has only opened in a relatively small number of territories. The Judge, meanwhile, earned $6.9 million, bringing its tally to $19 million after a few weeks, which is unsurprising considering that it is a very dialogue heavy drama without a big hook. The Equalizer rounds out the top ten with $5.7 million. The Denzel Washington action film has now earned $77.7 million from international audiences, making it one of the actor's ten biggest overseas hits.

Also of note this weekend: Disney/Marvel's Big Hero 6 opened to $5 million, much of which came from Russia. While no one is expecting the superhero animation to be as big of a hit as Frozen, that opening does put it in line with other recent Disney animation successes like Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph, which bodes well for a film that should be interesting to watch, if only in terms of Marvel's attempts to conquer any and all media.