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As expected, The Fantastic Four: First Steps won the weekend box office, outpacing tracking and impressing audiences.
Posted in: Box Office, Movies | Tagged: how to train your dragon, Lilo & Stitch, Weekend Box Office
How To Train Your Dragon Packs Theaters For Father's Day
How To Train Your Dragon opened well above tracking and dethroned Disney's Lilo & Stitch on top of the box office.
Article Summary
- How To Train Your Dragon dominates Father's Day box office with an $83 million opening weekend.
- Lilo & Stitch slips to second after a three-week reign, while Materialists opens strong for A24.
- The Dragon franchise achieves its best debut, soaring past previous series records and global milestones.
- Upcoming releases like Elio and 28 Years Later are set to challenge Dragon's top spot at the box office.
How To Train Your Dragon ended the three-week run on top for Lilo & Stitch, packing theaters for Father's Day and scoring the highest opening for the franchise. The final tally was $83 million, which is high above tracking. I thought it would pass $100 million, but this is still a fantastic result for Universal. The highest opening for any of the three animated films was the third film with $55 million. Overseas, this one pulled in another $114 million, so sometime today it will already pass the $200 million mark worldwide. There will be some competition for the family dollars at the box office in the next couple of weeks, but it should stay healthy overall.
How To Train Your Dragon: A Franchise Renewed
Slipping to second place to How To Train Your Dragon is Lilo & Stitch, which grossed another $15.5 million. Total worldwide, it has made $825 million. It might just miss $1 billion. Third place went to A24's release of Celine Song's new film Materialists, which grossed a healthy $12 million, the third-best opening for an A24 film ever. The Pedro Pascal army is to thank for that, as well as pent-up demand for an adult comedy in theaters. We don't get a lot of those anymore. Fourth place goes to Mission: Impossible- The Final Reckoning with $10.3 million; number five was Ballerina, which saw a huge -62% drop to $9.4 million. That one will fall well short of the $100 million mark domestically, a big disappointment for Lionsgate.
The weekend box office top five for June 13:
- How To Train Your Dragon- $83 million
- Lilo & Stitch- $15.5 million
- Materialists- $12 million
- Mission: Impossible- The Final Reckoning $10.3 million
- Ballerina- $9.4 million
Next weekend, the marketplace becomes crowded, but it should again be a boon to theaters. Two major openings will compete with week two of How to Train Your Dragon for the top spot. Its main competitors are Disney and Pixar's Elio. The other major opening is the long-awaited zombie sequel, 28 Years Later. As far as Dragon vs Elio, I think Dragon wins the showdown. There is not a lot of buzz out there for Elio, and I see that opening third with around $28 million, about what Elemental did a couple of years ago. If it is any good at all, it will have staying power and legs out much like that film did. If it is met with a shrug, it will be a Strange World-sized disaster, and Pixar officially becomes a sequel machine only. However, I think 28 Years Later will open number one with about $42 million, squeaking it by week two of Dragon.
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