Box office: ‘Magnificent Seven’ remake rides to the top spot in its debut

Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the classic 1960 western “The Magnificent Seven” may not have lived up to its name with the critics, but the film still got off to a strong start at the box office.

The film starring Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke and Chris Pratt as gunslingers-for-hire earned an estimated $12.7 million on Friday, which easily toppled the box office leader for the previous two weeks — the Clint Eastwood-directed “Sully.”

“Magnificent Seven” is on pace to confirm estimates that placed the film as earning between $30 million and $45 million in its opening weekend, according to reports from pre-release audience surveys. Though regarded as one of the higher-profile releases of the fall, “Magnificent Seven” didn’t score so high with critics, who gave the film only a 47% approval rating on the review aggregation site Metacritic.

Also opening this weekend, the animated comedy “Storks” made its debut in second place with an estimated $5.7 million on Friday. Produced by Warner Bros., which found box office gold in 2014 with “The Lego Movie,” and written by Nicholas Stoller (“Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising”), the film features the voices of Andy Samberg and Kelsey Grammer and was projected to draw between $30 million and $37 million.

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The box office champ for the previous two weekends, “Sully,” fell to third in the rankings with an estimated $4.1 million. Starring Tom Hanks in the title role, the film about the emergency water landing of a US Airways passenger jet in 2009 has earned just over $82 million to date.

Rounding out the top five, the romantic comedy “Bridget Jones’s Baby” starring Renée Zellweger earned an estimated $1.4 million, followed by another sequel, “Blair Witch,” which took in $1.2 million, according to estimates.

chris.barton@latimes.com

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