Another live-action remake topped the charts as Universal Pictures’ “How to Train Your Dragon” soared to $83.7 million at the box office, marking the best domestic opening weekend for the franchise.
The fantasy adventure movie beat analysts’ expectations of $70 million and held off Disney’s live-action remake “Lilo & Stitch,” which had maintained the No. 1 spot at the box office for three consecutive weekends.
“There is an insatiable appetite for PG-rated family fare. And there’s the nostalgia factor with ‘How to Train Your Dragon.’ Those movies have earned collectively, even before this film, over a billion dollars worldwide,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore.
The first “How to Train Your Dragon” film opened to roughly $64.5 million in 2010 when adjusted for inflation and the third installment to the franchise opened in 2019 to about $81 million, adjusted for inflation.
A24 Films’ “Materialists” also opened this weekend and pulled in $12 million, edging the eighth “Mission: Impossible” ($10.3 million) for the No. 3 spot this weekend, and behind “Lilo & Stitch,” which grossed $15.5 million domestically for a total of $366 million.
Father’s Day weekend has offered moviegoers a diverse slate of choices as the first half of the year comes to a close. The lineup includes children and family movies (“How to Train Your Dragon” and “Lilo & Stitch”), action flicks (“Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning”) and romantic comedies (“Materialists”). The total box office for 2025 is $3.72 billion, up 23% from this period last year, according to Comscore data.
“Opening ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ on Father’s Day weekend was a really smart move,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “Not only being a remake of a modern, beloved animated film but also one with a strong father-son storyline.”
Robbins added that its full weekend gross could be slightly higher than early Sunday estimates because of the holiday. Ultimately, it’s “more about that staying power for those family films,” he said.
PG-rated films account for $1.53 billion, or 41%, of this year’s earnings, according to Comscore data.
But live-action adaptations of family films have not always been box office hits. Disney’s “Snow White,” for example, dashed hope for the big-budget fairytale retelling when it grossed only $43 million domestically during its opening weekend. The most popular live-action remakes have still been Disney films, including 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast”($230.4 million) and 2019’s “The Lion King” ($240.3 million), both figures adjusted for inflation.
Box office analyst David A. Gross, who publishes FranchiseRe, said “How to Train Your Dragon” is more of a “hybrid film” akin to the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies, because it combines animation with human characters.
The 2022 release of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” grossed $71 million during its opening weekend, up from the first live-action remake’s $57 million opening.
Dergarabedian expects “How to Train Your Dragon” to continue to perform well despite Pixar’s “Elio,”which opens Thursday.
“This summer is really just revving up,” he said. “This is just another building block in what is turning out to be a spectacular summer for moviegoers, movie theaters and studios.”