Between the supernatural battles of The Dark Tower and the brutal blows of Detroit, the movies saw a ton of gnarly, bloody action this weekend — and Idris Elba and his lethal aim were the victors of this particular box office skirmish.

The big screen adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower series brought in $19.5 million for its debut weekend, trouncing Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit — which cleared $7.25 million — and just barely out-earning Dunkirk, as its third weekend in theaters raked in a $17.6 million sum.

As The Hollywood Reporter points out, The Dark Tower came super close to beating a record for a Stephen King adaptation on the domestic gross front: 2007's 1408 is the current title-holder for the strongest opening performance of a King flick, with $20.6 million, which means that The Dark Tower fell shy of its goal by a mere $1.1 million.

The moral of the story: Never underestimate the power of an Elba stare-down, especially if it's aimed at a devilish Matthew McConaughey.