\n\tHow will a plucky, alien-obsessed tween and an undead army fare at the box office against a lovable, fiery dragon?<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s the looming question as Disney and Pixar\u2019s intergalactic animated adventure \u201cElio<\/a>\u201d and Sony\u2019s post-apocalyptic thriller \u201c28 Years Later<\/a>\u201d prepare to face off against Universal\u2019s live-action \u201cHow to Train Your Dragon<\/a>\u201d remake in North America. \u201cHow to Train Your Dragon\u201d topped the box office last weekend with $84.6 million and will likely retain the No. 1 spot with $40 million to $43 million in its second outing, marking a roughly 50% decline. The film has grossed $206 million globally so far.<\/p>\n \n\tSecond place will be a close race as \u201cElio\u201d aims for $25 million to $30 million in its first weekend and \u201c28 Years Later\u201d targets $28 million to $30 million in its debut. Box office tracking isn\u2019t an exact science, though some forecasts are suggesting that \u201cElio\u201d will land under $25 million, while \u201c28 Years Later\u201d could surpass $35 million over the weekend. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cElio\u201d looks to collect another $30 million to $35 million at the international box office for a global start between $55 million and $60 million. Directed by\u00a0Madeline Sharafian,\u00a0Domee Shi and\u00a0Adrian Molina, the story follows an 11-year-old who forms a bond with eccentric aliens after getting mistakenly identified as Earth\u2019s intergalactic ambassador. The film cost $150 million to produce, not including a hefty global marketing spend.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cElio\u201d marks an important test for Pixar. Disney\u2019s animation empire recently delivered a record-breaking smash with 2024\u2019s \u201cInside Out 2\u201d ($1.69 billion globally) but hasn\u2019t successfully launched a new property in some time. Unless \u201cElio\u201d can eclipse $30 million domestically and $45 million globally, it\u2019ll go down as the worst debut in Pixar\u2019s 30-year history. That unfortunate distinction currently belongs to 2023\u2019s \u201cElemental\u201d with $29.6 million domestically and $44.5 million globally. Though the film was able to endure at the box office, \u201cElemental\u201d ended its run with $155 million domestically and $496 million globally, far less than prior Pixar entries.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201c28 Years Later\u201d is projected to add an additional $28 million to $30 million overseas, which would propel its initial worldwide tally to $56 million to $60 million. That\u2019s a respectable start for the $60-million budgeted film. The threequel will easily notch the biggest debut in the Danny Boyle-directed series, which began with 2002\u2019s \u201c28 Days Later\u201d ($10 million debut) and continued with 2007\u2019s \u201c28 Weeks Later\u201d ($9.8 million). From there, it won\u2019t take much coinage for \u201c28 Years Later\u201d to become the highest-grossing installment in the trilogy, which is presently \u201c28 Days Later\u201d with $75 million worldwide.<\/p>\n \n\tSet almost three decades after the contagious rage virus unleashed its wrath on the world, \u201c28 Years Later\u201d follows a group of isolated survivors who venture to the mainland and discover that a mutation is threatening to ravage the rest of the population. \u201c28 Years Later\u201d will kick off a new zombie-infested trilogy, spearheaded by Boyle and writer Alex Garland. The film was shot back-to-back with its sequel, \u201c28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,\u201d which will debut in 2026. Meanwhile a third film (and fifth in the franchise) is in development.<\/p>\n \n\tSo far, box office revenues are improving upon last year (up 23% from 2024) but still falling short of pre-COVID times (26% behind 2019, according to Comscore). So movie theater owners need the rest of the summer slate \u2014 including \u201cF1\u201d (June 27), \u201cJurassic World Rebirth\u201d (July 2), \u201cSuperman\u201d (July 8) and \u201cFantastic Four: The First Steps\u201d (July 25) \u2014 to keep up the momentum in the hopes of delivering a record post-pandemic popcorn season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How will a plucky, alien-obsessed tween and an undead army fare at the box office against a lovable,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[16475,79238,77,36987,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-194876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-28-years-later","9":"tag-elio","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-how-to-train-your-dragon","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194876","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=194876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}