Los Angeles — It's victory for Dunkirk at the box office this weekend. Studios on Sunday say the Christopher Nolan World War II epic earned an estimated $50.5m to top the charts, with $11.7m of that coming from IMAX screens.
The well-reviewed Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish and Jada Pinkett Smith comedy Girls Trip also beat expectations, taking second place with $30.4m. Audiences were 79 percent female and gave the film a coveted A+ CinemaScore.
Not so successful was Luc Besson's $180m sci-fi epic Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which earned $17m from North American theatres over the weekend.
Exposure was limited, however. Besson's production company EuropaCorp says 90 percent of the budget was already covered by foreign pre-sales, equity financing and tax subsidies.
Dunkirk releases in SA on Friday, 28 July.