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After a ten day absence, Guardians of the Galaxy returns to the top spot of the box office with Monday’s totals. It’s close, with Guardians earning $2.9 million to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ $2.8 million, but the signs were there after the weekend’s totals came and the two films were only a few million apart. After three weekends, Guardians of the Galaxy sits at $225.5 million, and it’s eyeing X-Men: Days of Future Past at $232.5 million for fifth place among 2014 releases. It’s slowed down a good deal after earning $94.3 million in its first weekend but another strong weekend puts Guardians in line to cross both Maleficent ($236.7 million) and Transformers: Age of Extinction ($243.3 million) to take third place. Not sure if there’s enough left in the tank for it to challenge Captain America: The Winter Solder ($259.7 million) and The LEGO Movie ($257.7) for the 2014 box office champ title but it’s still something to watch over the next couple weekends through Labor Day.

Meanwhile, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is up to $120 million after 11 days. It’s almost at its reported $125 million production budget, which I admit was something I did not think it would come close to before it opened. I expect it to stay neck and neck with Guardians of the Galaxy over the rest of the week, with Guardians winning most of the week.

The mediocre roster of weekend openers starts with Let’s Be Cops. $2.1 million on Monday and a total of $28.3 million is actually pretty good for the savagely reviewed comedy with big names. Once again, the nonsensical Wednesday opening took away a nice headline, as let’s Be Cops could’ve easily had a weekend of $20 million based on this, which would be a nice accomplishment. Instead it’s just kinda there, lost between the two previous weekend openers.

The Expendables 3 is not as fortunate as Let’s Be Cops, with $1.3 million on Monday and $17.2 million to date. It’s going to take the entire rest of the week and next weekend to match what The Expendables 2 opened to. Clearly, Kelsey Grammer is a ruiner. Lest you think this is the end for the franchise, it keeps growing overseas despite the diminishing returns domestically, so Expendables 4 is almost guaranteed to happen.

The last of the relevant films is The Giver, the young adult novel adaptation, which added $1.3 million on Monday to bring it to $13.6 million. This isn’t the worst thing ever, but suffice to say that co-star Taylor Swift’s new single will sell considerably more copies this week than The Giver will sell tickets.