LOS ANGELES - It's victory for "Dunkirk" and "Girls Trip" at the box office this weekend. Both original and well-reviewed films smashed expectations and enticed diverse audiences to the theaters, even though cumulatively summer remains down from last year.

Christopher Nolan's World War II epic brought in an estimated $50.5 million to easily top the charts, according to Warner Bros., while the raucous comedy "Girls Trip" broke the R-rated comedy slump of 2017 with $30.4 million to take second place.

"Dunkirk" was far from an inevitable summer success, but stellar reviews, awards buzz and hype around the film's large-scale production helped drive people to the theater and large-format screens.

Drawing quite a different audience was the buddy comedy "Girls Trip," starring Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish, Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah as a group of girlfriends who head to New Orleans for a weekend of fun.

Not so successful was Luc Besson's nearly $180 million sci-fi epic "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," which earned $17 million from North American theaters over the weekend for a fifth-place start. It came in behind "Spider-Man: Homecoming," in third in its third weekend with $22 million and "War for the Planet of the Apes" in fourth place in its second weekend with $20.4 million.

Overall, the year remains around flat from last year, and the summer season looks unlikely to make up for its deficit through the end of July and August. - AP