{"id":174264,"date":"2025-06-11T00:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T00:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174264\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T00:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T00:14:10","slug":"how-to-train-your-dragon-to-fire-up-summer-box-office-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174264\/","title":{"rendered":"‘How to Train Your Dragon’ To Fire Up Summer Box Office: Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDomestic box office estimates for this week\u2019s opening of the live-action adaptation of Universal<\/a>\/DreamWorks Animation\u2019s How to Train Your Dragon<\/a><\/strong> are between $65 million-$75 million-plus <\/strong>at 4,000 theaters, and don\u2019t be shocked if this beloved title overperforms.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis isn\u2019t Gus Van Sant\u2019s take on Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Psycho, meaning a shot-for-shot version of the original 2010 movie \u2014 and that\u2019s even with original HTTYD architect Dean DeBlois behind the camera. There\u2019s a lot of heart and there\u2019s a lot of flying swoops that set this live-action reboot apart (even if Toothless the Dragon looks similar to his animated version), not to mention Mason Thames and Nico Parker\u2019s respective turns as Hiccup and Astrid; the duo take entire ownership of the characters. No carbon copies here.<\/p>\n

\n\tCritics on Rotten Tomatoes are 81% fresh; the original animated movie was 99% certified fresh. HTTYD will have all the firepower of PLFs, 4DX, ScreenX and the entire Imax network of 413 screens.<\/p>\n

\n\tEstimates for the full international opening through Sunday point to the $110M <\/strong>range, with room for upside. That takes the global start for the movie produced by Marc Platt, Adam Siegel and DeBlois to $175M-$185M<\/strong>. The international take includes offshore previews, which will roll up into that number. Through Monday, the previews estimate is $21.8M <\/strong>(see more detail below). HTTYD\u00a0started significant overseas previews last weekend and begins official rollout Wednesday, with all international box office markets in the mix through Friday save Japan which flies in September 5.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Toothless<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tToothless in \u2018How To Train Your Dragon\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUniversal Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\tHow to Train Your Dragon is rated PG for kissing. The movie before P&A cost $150M net, shot with tax credits in Ireland. <\/p>\n

\n\tStateside previews for How to Train Your Dragon start 2 p.m. Thursday. There\u2019s some question as to how hard the fourth weekend of Lilo & Stitch<\/strong> will eat into Toothless\u2019 take, with the former live-action take of the Disney toon expected to do around $20M<\/strong> in the U.S. and Canada, off 38% week over week. The notion as of this minute is that there\u2019s room for both adaptations of these beloved feature toons.<\/p>\n

\n\tLilo & Stitch made $3.6M in its third Monday, with a running cume of $339.2M<\/strong>. HTTYD is big in unaided awareness and first choice with women under 25, through currently pacing behind Lilo & Stitch at the same point in time before its opening.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn February,\u00a0How to Train Your Dragon\u2018s Super Bowl spot <\/a>amassed north of 370M global views on YouTube and yielded the most online engagement of any trailer shown during the game. The official trailer dropped February 12, when it also trended on YouTube and played on such movies as\u00a0Captain America: Brave New World, A Minecraft Movie\u00a0and\u00a0Thunderbolts*.\u00a0HTTYD trailers to date have clocked three quarters of a billion views to date. <\/p>\n

Note that\u00a0HTTYD\u00a0has no significant holidays ahead overseas, but European majors love the previous animated movies as does Latin America, especially Brazil and Mexico. Korea and Australia also have a sweet spot for Toothless.<\/p>\n

The property is well known in China, where the 2014 and 2019 films released (grossing a combined $120M at historical rates). As per the norm in recent times, the market is uncertain, but the film is leading presales on Friday and Saturday. There are popular\u00a0HTTYD-themed attractions at the Universal Beijing Resort including a character meet-and-greet and an \u201cUntrainable\u201d show.<\/p>\n

In terms of overall comps, it\u2019s not cut-and-dried. If we look at animation to live-action transfers, we\u2019re pretty much in Disney-only territory which is a different beast based on the historical nature of those IPs. Meanwhile, it\u2019s not apples-to-apples to comp the\u00a0HTTYD\u00a0toons to a flesh-and-blood update.<\/p>\n

And yet, looking at the previews, we can extrapolate overall good news. Direct comps are again ornery since the sneaks include varied amounts of screenings and non-traditional opening days. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, here\u2019s a sample of what\u2019s transpired with\u00a0HTTYD\u2019s early previews overseas: Korea\u00a0began previews June 6, reaching\u00a0$4.3M\u00a0after four days and leading each day, playing across 1,644 screens, including 26 Imax. It has a fantastic 99% CVG Egg score.
\u00a0
UK & Ireland\u00a0kicked off previews Monday, grossing\u00a0$1.2M\u00a0across 1,600 screens (54 in Imax) and at No. 1 on the day with a 41% market share.
\u00a0
Germany\u00a0on Monday grossed $1.1M\u00a0in previews across 1,075 screens. France\u00a0has grossed $1.4M in previews through two days.\u00a0
\u00a0
Across all of Latin America,\u00a0HTTYD\u00a0opened in 1,681 locations. Hiccup\u2019s jump-start in Brazil is $2.7M. Mexico\u00a0grossed $2.1M in Saturday-Sunday previews this past weekend across 812 screens.<\/p>\n

Of the nearly $1.7B overall that the animated franchise has grossed, $1.1B comes from international.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"L-R:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Materialists<\/a>\u2018<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA24<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s another wide entry and that\u2019s A24\u2019s Materialists <\/strong>from Oscar nominee Celine Song, which currently counts 89% certified fresh with critics on RT. The outlook is $7M-$8M<\/strong> for the feature, which cost around $20M. You want more romantic comedies? You want more movies for women? Well, then here\u2019s an original starring Dakota Johnson as an upscale matchmaker torn between the wealthy unicorn guy, played by Pedro Pascal, and the poor b.f. with a heart of gold, played by Chris Evans. Sony bought foreign on Materialists.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnaided awareness and first choice is best with women over 25, and just a point behind in each category from Anyone But You. Let\u2019s see where this one goes as it\u2019s a crowd-pleaser with a lot of quotable lines and an ending that will keep women and men debating well after they leave the theater. Materialists is rated R for hanky panky with Pedro. Previews begin at 1 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tLionsgate\u2019s second weekend of From the World of John Wick<\/strong>: Ballerina<\/strong> is looking to be around $11M<\/strong>, off 55%. On Monday, the Len Wiseman-directed movie did $2.05M, taking the running total on the Thunder Road production to $26.5M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Domestic box office estimates for this week\u2019s opening of the live-action adaptation of Universal\/DreamWorks Animation\u2019s How to Train…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,71047,36987,72120,3943,16,15,6114],"class_list":{"0":"post-174264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-from-the-world-of-john-wick-ballerina","10":"tag-how-to-train-your-dragon","11":"tag-materialists","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-universal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}