Despite reviews so appalling they bordered on the ridiculous, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should comfortably overhaul Guardians of the Galaxy at the box-office this weekend, on its way to a cool $50 million debut. The Michael Bay produced Megan Fox starrer is exceeding expectations, with Paramount originally estimating its debut at around $40 million.

Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesLook at that Turtle.

Marvel's Guardians is no slouch and is expected to take $40 million in its second weekend for a global total of $300 million. A sequel for that movie is already confirmed, but at this rate, Bay and his team might have to start thinking about investing more time in those wise-cracking Turtles.

Directed by Joanthan Liebesman and starring Fox and Will Arnett, the movie is based on the characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman. It focuses on four outcast brothers rising from the sewers to discover their destiny as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, working with a fearless reporter to save New York City from the fearsome Shredder and his evil Foot Clan.

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The movie - but mainly Michael Bay - has faced a backlash from both critics and fans of the original movie since it was announced, though speaking at a press conference last week, Megan Fox had some choice words for the haters.

"Let me tell you something about those people. How much money did Transformers 4 make? Exactly. Those people can complain - they all go to the theater. They're gonna love it - and if they don't love it, they can f*ck off, and that's the end of that."

Elsewhere at the box-office, New Line and Warner Bros' tornado movie Into the Storm grossed around $800,000 on Thursday night and is tracking to open with $17 million. The movie - another flop with the critics - cost under $50 million to make.