‘The Magnificent Seven’ Win Weekend Box Office Duel
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The Magnificent Seven has shot to the top of the North American box office.
Antoine Fuqua’s western, which stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, has grossed $35 million in its opening weekend. The film premiered on Friday to mostly positive reviews and has scored one of the highest openings ever for a western film.
The movie is a revamped version of John Sturges’ 1960 film, which featured Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and Yul Brynner as members of a group of elite gunmen tasked with protecting a small Mexican village from an invasion of bandits. That film was also a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s movie Seven Samurai, and was followed by three sequels: Return of the Magnificent Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride Again.
The new movie reunites Fuqua with Washington for the third time – after Training Day and 2014’s The Equalizer. He also re-teamed with Ethan Hawke, who appeared alongside the actor in his Oscar-winning role as Detective Alonzo Harris in 2001’s Training Day.
Meanwhile, animated film Storks comes in at number two with $21.8 million, and Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks’ Sully, about hero pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger’s ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ plane landing on water in 2009 and its aftermath, has dropped two spots to third place with $13.8 million. The film had held the top spot for two consecutive weeks since its opening on September 9.
Renee Zellweger’s Bridget Jones’s Baby and Oliver Stone’s Snowden, round out the top five.
