Box Office - 'How To Train Your Dragon' Back On Top

After debuting five weeks ago to what was considered a fairly uneventful $43 million (Shutter Island did $40 million in fewer theaters without the benefit of 68% of tickets sold at a higher rate for 3-D), How to Train Your Dragon has cobbled together a very effective month, primarily through word-of-mouth. And now it's all paid off; Dragon is once again the number one movie in America. Keep in mind that a week after it opened, another 3-D movie - Clash of the Titans - took the top spot, and don't forget that this week and last week, Dragon shed a total of almost 350 theaters, which would normally be a disadvantage. But the drops from weekend to weekend have been quite low (topping out with 34% in its second weekend, which is always the biggest drop, anyway), and now after losing only 23% of last weekend's audience total, Dragon earned $15 million, easily enough to turn back the challenge of every other movie released since the film's March 26th debut. Obviously, $15 million isn't a great big number, and relatively speaking, $178 million on a $165 million investment isn't super duper, either, but the global number is just over $350 million, so Dragons is getting closer to being an outright success. But keep it in perspective: Monsters vs. Aliens, last year's DreamWorks 3-D spring release, made around $380 versus a $175 million budget and was not considered a hit by the studio, so there's still more work for Dragons to do. And it should be able to make about another $100 million or so in the next few weeks around the world. The Back-Up Plan and The Losers are both failures by any measure. A combined $22 million is just lousy for two wide releases that faced a poorly performing predecessor (Kick-Ass) and a 3-D movie that's over a month old. Lousy. Either film would be lucky to break even, especially the more heavily promoted Losers, which didn't even make $10 million in just under 3,000 theaters. Kick-Ass didn't fall through the floor, but it did surrender 52% of the opening weekend crowd, which dropped it to fifth place. There probably won't be much walk-up business for it, even with good audience feedback. Lionsgate doesn't have the horses to hold on to a lot of theaters during the summer, especially for a movie that apparently nobody cares about. Pity. The Top Five:
1 - How to Train Your Dragon ($15 million)
2 - The Back-Up Plan ($12.2 million)
3 - Date Night ($10.6 million)
4 - The Losers ($9.6 million)
5 - Kick-Ass ($9.5 million)

Comments

[Orinn]

Maybe its just me, but If I could invest $175 and have it double in a year, I would be very very happy. I know its a gamble that there making but I assume I have to missing something as movies seem to give the best rate of return on investment compared to anything else you can do in this day and age. (assuming you dont make crap)

[MRPigg]

Very disappointed in the performance of Kick-Ass. Perhaps Roger Ebert's insanely narrow-minded viewpoint is shared by the average moviegoer.

[Honz Brix]

Went and saw Dragons tonight. Very impressive!! I actually liked it better than UP which i loved and thought was one of Pixars best. Go see this movie if you get the chance