Box office update: 'Guardians of the Galaxy' launches to $37.8 million on Friday

They might be underdogs on screen, but the Guardians of the Galaxy are about to become the biggest heroes of this summer’s box office.

After scoring $11.2 million in late-night Thursday shows — a record for 2014 — Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy rocketed to a huge $37.8 on Friday. Depending on how the movie holds up today, it could end the weekend with upwards of $100 million in the bank — the highest August opening in history, beating The Bourne Ultimatum‘s $69.3 million in 2007, and a contender for the biggest opening weekend of the year. (The current champ is June’s Transformers: Age of Extinction with $100 million.) Marvel already holds the year’s number two weekend spot thanks to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which opened to $95 million in April.

The weekend’s other wide release, the James Brown biopic Get On Up, earned $5 million on Friday on track for a $15 million weekend, not quite enough to wrestle the second-place spot from Lucy, the Scarlett Johansson thriller that added $5.5 million on Friday for an 8-day cume of $66.8 million.

Here’s the top five:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy – $17.1 million Friday (new)

2. Lucy – $5.5 million Friday ($66.8 million total)

3. Get On Up – $5 million Friday (new)

4. Hercules — $3.2 million Friday ($44.8 million domestic total)

5. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes– $2.4 million Friday ($183.1 million domestic total)

Check back in tomorrow for the full weekend report.