Box-Office Doldrums: 'The Dark Tower' Takes Modest Lead, 'Detroit' Lags Far Behind

The Halle Berry thriller 'Kidnap' debuted in the middle of the pack, behind holdovers 'Dunkirk,' 'The Emoji Movie' and 'Girls Trip.'

No one’s popping champagne bottles this morning, since the weekend’s new releases failed to generate much excitement at the box office. While The Dark Tower, the Stephen King adaptation, took a modest lead, coming in atop the box-office list on Friday with an estimated $7.7 million, Kathryn Bigelow’s new drama Detroit stumbled badly, collecting just $2.62 million. The thriller Kidnap, the weekend’s other new wide release, arrived in the middle of the day’s top 10, with $3.68 million.

The Dark Tower, Sony and MRC's first adaptation of the King fantasy novels, with its initial $7.7 million take (including $1.8 million in Thursday previews) is on its way to a weekend domestic debut of about $18.9 million.

That would put Dark Tower, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, slightly below estimates of $20 million, but in line with Sony's estimates in the high teens. The film, which cost $60 million to make, should still land No. 1 for the weekend ahead of holdover Dunkirk, which took in another $5 million on Friday. In the film, Elba plays a gunslinger who is determined to hunt down his nemesis, the Man in Black (McConaughey), and guard the Dark Tower, a powerful structure that protects the world from darkness.

This weekend's other two new wide releases — the Halle Berry starrer Kidnap and the serious-minded Detroit — look as if they will debut below holdovers Dunkirk, The Emoji Movie and Girls Trip for the weekend.

Kidnap, an indie action pic that was originally set to be released by Relativity Media, collected $5 million on Friday (including $500,000 in previews), and its weekend cume is headed toward $10 million. The project, about a mother who will stop at nothing to get her kidnapped son back, is being handled by David Dinerstein's new distribution outfit, Aviron. Luis Prieto directed the film.

Detroit, Bigelow's latest, pulled in just $2.62 million on Friday (including $525,000 in previews) as it heads toward a weekend tally of $7 million to $8 million. That will put Detroit, expanding into 3,007 theaters after opening in select theaters last weekend, behind its tracking, which initially had it earning in the $13 million range.

The first release from Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures under its own distribution label, Detroit earned a largely positive Rotten Tomatoes rating of 89 percent, but its re-creation of the 1967 Detroit riot appears to be meeting audience resistance. It stars John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jason Mitchell, Jack Reynor and Anthony Mackie. The script was written by Bigelow’s longtime collaborator Mark Boal.

On the specialty front, Taylor Sheridan's snowbound thriller, Wind River, starring Jeremy Renner, scored a strong $52,212 in just four theaters for a per-theater average of $13,053.

Meanwhile, Dunkirk, which held down the No. 2 spot on Friday as began its third weekend of release, has collected $127 million domestically and crossed $300 million at the worldwide box office.