'Magnificent Seven' rides Denzel's star power to $35M debut

After Clint Eastwood's Miracle on the Hudson docudrama "Sully," starring Hanks as Captain Chesley Sullenberger, topped ticket sales of the last two weeks, "The Magnificent Seven" rode Washington's star power to an estimated $35 million debut over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The debut of "Sully" was Hanks' fourth best opening of his career; the opening of "The Magnificent Seven," Antoine Fuqua's remake of John Sturges' 1960 Western (itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai"), is Washington's third best.

[...] the ensemble of "The Magnificent Seven" most notably includes Chris Pratt, the "Guardians of the Galaxy" star and a potential heir apparent to Washington and Hanks.

[...] Washington and Hanks ranked as the overwhelming reason audiences went to see either movie, according to comScore's survey of moviegoers.

Denzel Washington can be part of a genre, the Western, that doesn't exactly have teenagers scrambling to the movie theater.

' "Storks," an animated release where the large-winged birds have given up the baby delivery business for online sales.

A potentially bigger test of Hanks' drawing power awaits the actor next month with the release of "Inferno," in which he reprises his role as Robert Langdon in the Dan Brown franchise.

The only Westerns to debut better, not accounting for inflation, bended the genre in other directions: sci-fi in the case of "Cowboys & Aliens" ($36.4 million in 2011) and animation in "Rango" ($38.1 million, also in 2011).

The Coen brothers' "True Grit" (which grossed $171.2 million in total), Alejandro Inarritu's "The Revenant" ($183.6 million) and a pair of Quintin Tarantino releases ("Django Unchained," with $162.8 million, and "The Hateful Eight," with $54.1 million) have all proven the genre's fortitude.