Los Angeles • "Guardians of the Galaxy" continues to rule the box office universe.
The cosmic Marvel adventure arrived in first place at the box office for a fourth weekend with $10.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The domestic haul for "Guardians," which features Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana as intergalactic do-gooders, now stands at $294.6 million after six weeks of release.
"Guardians" furthered cemented itself as the top grossing film of the year in North America, eclipsing the $259.8 million earned by fellow Marvel movie "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." The sci-fi romp earned an additional $11.5 million internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $586.2 million.
Despite the continued success of "Guardians," the weekend box office marked the slowest of the year with the total for all films released projected at $65 million, down 23 percent from a year ago, according to Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak.
Paramount's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sliced off second place in its fifth weekend with $6.5 million, bringing the domestic total of the live-action superhero reboot starring Megan Fox and Will Arnett to $174.6 million.
The Warner Bros. young-adult novel adaptation "If I Stay," starring Chloe Grace Moretz, took third place in its third weekend with $5.7 million.
The weekend's only new release, Freestyle's musical drama "The Identical," dismally debuted in 11th place with $1.9 million. The film starring Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd failed to achieve the successes of similar faith-based films as "Heaven Is for Real," "God's Not Dead" and "Son of God" released this year.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.