Box Office: 'How To Train Your Dragon' Flies to $11.1 Million in Preview Grosses
Unless it's as frontloaded as a stereotypical MCU sequel, DreamWorks and Universal's live-action remake may snag a $90-$110 million opening weekend.
How to Train Your Dragon earned $8.6 million in Thursday previews. Including the Wednesday night “early access” showings, that’s $11.1 million heading into the actual Fri-Sun weekend. With solid reviews (76% and 6.8/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) and its existence as the first big-deal live-action kids flick, there’s little reason to expect frontloading. Or, offhand, we might see “frontloading” that would be high for a kid-targeted animated film (think Incredibles 2 earning $18.5 million on Thursday toward a $183 million Fri-Sun debut) on its way to sky-high openings.
However, even that would be “fine, whatever” for a much-anticipated live-action franchise flick. Official tracking suggests an over/under $75 million launch, which would be great for a film budgeted at $150 million. Noting the likely kid-powered Saturday and Sunday matinee upswing, I’d be slightly surprised if it were merely as leggy this weekend as a stereotypical MCU flick (think 12-15% of the weekend total on Thursday).
Even math akin to Incredibles 2 (9.9x the Thursday gross) would get Universal’s YA fantasy adventure to $110 million by Sunday night. Thursday-to-weekend legs like the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast ($174 million from a $16.3 million Thursday in 2017) get Dean DeBloise’s adaptation of his own animated franchise-starter to $120 million. A performance closer to the more frontloaded The Lion King ($191 million/$23 million in 2019) gets it to $92 million.
Ditto, by the way, if it performs like a Jurassic World sequel ($148 million/$15.3 million in 2018 and $145 million/$18 million in 2022) or a later Fast Saga sequel ($99 million/$10.4 million in 2017 and $70 million/$7.1 million in 2021). Those comparisons would get How to Train Your Dragon’s opening weekend between $90 million and $110 million for the weekend total. No, I’m not using the $8.6 Thursday gross. Anyone who showed up on Wednesday would have otherwise shown up on Thursday.