Dark Tower Beats Dunkirk at Box Office

After a decade of development and several postponements, the long-awaited Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower debuted with an estimated $19.5 million in North American ticket sales, narrowly edging out the two-week leader Dunkirk, AP reports. The so-so result for The Dark Tower, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, wasn't spectacular, but ambitions had already been scaled down for the movie, made for about $65 million by Sony Pictures and Media Rights Capital.

Christopher Nolan's World War II epic Dunkirk slid to second with $17.6 million in its third week. It's now made $133.6 million domestically. Another long-delayed film made its debut: The Halle Berry thriller Kidnap opened with $10.2 million. In its first week of wide release, the Kathryn Bigelow-directed docudrama Detroit disappointed with $7.8 million. (Read more The Dark Tower stories.)