Seven remake blasts way to No. 1

Chris Pratt is among the stars of MGM and Columbia’s new film The Magnificent Seven. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $35 million.
Chris Pratt is among the stars of MGM and Columbia’s new film The Magnificent Seven. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $35 million.

LOS ANGELES -- Shooting past all competition, MGM and Columbia's The Magnificent Seven took over the weekend box office, surpassing the debut of the animated Storks, from Warner Bros.

Starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke, the remake of John Sturges' 1959 Western pulled in about $35 million in sales in the United States and Canada, meeting analyst expectations of $30 million to $45 million.

The film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, revolves around a squad of seven gunslingers hired by a woman to defend her town from bandits led by a robber baron.

The Western arrives nearly more than six decades after the Sturges movie, which was itself a redo of Akira Kurosawa's classic The Seven Samurai.

Flying into second place was Storks with about $21.3 million. The film performed well below analyst projections of $30 million to $37 million in ticket sales, but opened in 33 international markets last weekend, generating an estimated $18.3 million.

Storks, about a gaggle of the feathered creatures delivering babies, features the voices of Andy Samberg and Kelsey Grammer, among others. Written by Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising), Storks is the second film to be released by Warner Bros. since the studio revved up its animation business three years ago. The first, 2014's The Lego Movie, became a box-office smash.

The third film will be 2017's The Lego Batman Movie.

Storks, which cost an estimated $70 million -- a relatively modest amount for an animated film -- scored with the under-25 crowd, which gave the comedy an A-plus CinemaScore grade.

Overall, the picture was deemed an A-minus. Response from critics was slightly less enthusiastic, with 63 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics favoring the film.

Warner Bros.' Sully, about the 2009 real-life emergency landing of a US Airways passenger jet on the Hudson River, wound up in third place after holding the top spot since its debut three weeks ago. Adding another $13.5 million, the film, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Clint Eastwood, has grossed $92.1 million domestically to date.

Bridget Jones's Baby, from Universal Pictures, took fourth in its second week -- perhaps because many in its target audiences took their kids to see Storks. The third film in the Bridget Jones series added just $4.7 million, for a domestic gross to date of $16.6 million. Its worldwide take, however, sits at $83.6 million.

Landing at the bottom of the top five was Snowden, adding another $4.1 million for a domestic gross of $15.1 million in its second week. The Oliver Stone-directed picture, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, cost $50 million to produce and is being distributed by Open Road Films.

On the limited release front, Disney's feel-good film Queen of Katwe, starring Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o, pulled in $305,000 from 52 locations. The film, which will expand domestically this weekend, is a bio-pic of a Ugandan chess prodigy. With an A-plus CinemaScore, a formidable 90 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics rated the movie, directed by Mira Nair, positively.

The 1950s-set melodrama The Dressmaker, starring Kate Winslet and Liam Hemsworth, pulled in $180,522 from 36 screens. The Broad Green Pictures' flick received a 54 percent favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:

  1. The Magnificent Seven, Sony, $34,703,397, 3,674 locations, $9,446 average, $34,703,397, one week.

  2. Storks, Warner Bros., $21,311,407, 3,922 locations, $5,434 average, $21,311,407, one week.

  3. Sully, Warner Bros., $13,537,270, 3,955 locations, $3,423 average, $92,100,717, two weeks.

  4. Bridget Jones's Baby, Universal, $4,656,690, 2,930 locations, $1,589 average, $16,594,365, two weeks.

  5. Snowden, Open Road, $4,056,229, 2,443 locations, $1,660 average, $15,050,455, two weeks.

  6. Blair Witch, Lionsgate, $4,053,785, 3,121 locations, $1,299 average, $16,232,480, two weeks.

  7. Don't Breathe, Sony, $3,773,226, 2,438 locations, $1,548 average, $81,084,034, five weeks.

  8. Suicide Squad, Warner Bros., $3,108,351, 2,172 locations, $1,431 average, $318,131,694, eight weeks.

  9. When the Bough Breaks, Sony, $2,515,605, 1,444 locations, $1,742 average, $26,628,954, three weeks.

  10. Kubo and the Two Strings, Focus Features, $1,124,384, 1,209 locations, $930 average, $45,975,957, six weeks.

  11. Hell or High Water, Lionsgate, $1,069,226, 1,128 locations, $948 average, $24,809,653, seven weeks.

  12. Bad Moms, STX Entertainment, $997,055, 986 locations, $1,011 average, $111,669,607, nine weeks.

  13. Pete's Dragon, Disney, $870,025, 1,230 locations, $707 average, $74,213,367, seven weeks.

  14. No Manches Frida, Lionsgate, $721,405, 416 locations, $1,734 average, $10,286,626, four weeks.

  15. The Secret Life Of Pets, Universal, $692,430, 747 locations, $927 average, $364,331,130, 12 weeks.

  16. Sausage Party, Sony, $562,680, 551 locations, $1,021 average, $96,384,272, seven weeks.

  17. Jason Bourne, Universal, $533,220, 623 locations, $856 average, $161,307,760, nine weeks.

  18. Hillsong -- Let Hope Rise, Pure Flix, $414,824, 763 locations, $544 average, $2,097,944, two weeks.

  19. The Wild Life, Lionsgate, $411,840, 1,431 locations, $288 average, $7,701,352, three weeks.

  20. The Beatles: Eight Days A Week, Abramorama, $403,363, 151 locations, $2,671 average, $1,468,301, two weeks.

MovieStyle on 09/30/2016

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