Key Takeaways
Total 3-Day Weekend Gross:
$126,291,841 | -17% Last Week / -17% Weekend 25, 2024
How to Train Your Dragon held on to the top spot over the weekend, leading a frame where the weekend’s two high-profile new releases came in under our forecasting panel’s expectations. While Sony’s release of 28 Years Later came in under our $35M+ forecast, it still delivered a career-best opening weekend for director Danny Boyle. There’s little positive to say about Elio‘s performance, however, as the Pixar release confirmed our pre-release fears with a truly underwhelming $21M debut.
- Top Title: How to Train Your Dragon (Universal Pictures) | $37M / 4,373 Screens / $8,461 PSA | Week 2
- Top Opener: 28 Years Later (Sony Pictures) | $30M / 3,444 Screens / $8,711 PSA | Week 1
- Best PSA: Familiar Touch (Music Box Films) | $11.6K / 1 Screen / $11,600 PSA | Week 1
Highlights From the Weekend
1. How to Train Your Dragon
Universal Pictures | Week 2
$37M Domestic Weekend | $160.48M Domestic Total
$358.18M Global Total
Universal and DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon remake continued to own the box office in its sophomore frame as it took in an estimated $37M on 4,373 screens for a $8,461 per-screen average. This was an overall weaker weekend than was forecast by tracking, with Dragon going down -56% from its debut last week. The movie is still a winner, though, even if it’s not doing Lilo & Stitch numbers (the Disney remake is now at $386.7M domestic in Frame 5).
With solid performances upwards of $8.5M every day, Monday-Thursday this week, the Frame 2 domestic total is now at $160.48M, which puts it a hair close to the entire domestic total of the last animated entry, The Hidden World ($160.7M). Clearly, ancillaries like the toys, theme parks, and streaming series DreamWorks Dragons helped keep this IP alive over the years to build demand for the live-action film.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked…
- Friday – $10.89M
- Saturday – $14.51
- Sunday – $11.60
Let’s compare that Frame 2 drop to the other three animated movies…
- How to Train Your Dragon (2010) – $29M (-34% 2nd wknd drop)
- How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) – $30M (-45% 2nd wknd drop)
- How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) – $24.7M (-50% 2nd wknd drop)
- How to Train Your Dragon (2025) – $37M (-56% 2nd wknd drop)
International dollars continue to roll in as How to Train Your Dragon earned $53.6M across 81 overseas markets for a global total of $358.18M. At this rate the movie is likely to cross the half-billion mark by next week. Top 3 territories are Mexico ($24.5M), China ($23.2M), and UK/Ireland ($16.8M). Domestic IMAX was $4M (11% of the gross) for a $15.4M total and $28.4M globally in the large format.
2. 28 Years Later
Sony Pictures | NEW
$30M Domestic Opening Weekend | $60M Global Total
Sony bet big on Danny Boyle’s legacy sequel 28 Years Later, the first of a planned three-part trilogy. While Years fell below our expectations, it still posted a strong estimated $30M debut on 3,444 screens for a $8,711 PSA. For those keeping score, that’s more than the previous film 28 Weeks Later made in total during its domestic run in 2007 ($28.6M).
The performance represents a career-best opening for Oscar-winner Boyle. It’s also the second-highest opening for a zombie-centric movie under World War Z ($66.4M), as well as the third-best opening horror film of 2025 behind Final Destination: Bloodlines ($51.6M) and Sinners ($48M).
Here’s how the 3-Day looked…
- Friday – $14.1M
- Saturday – $8.85M
- Sunday – $7M
Combined with the boost it got from $5.8M in Thursday previews, 28 Years Later managed to rule Friday in the #1 slot but by Saturday was quickly demoted to second, especially after the combined word-of-mouth damage of a “B” CinemaScore, PostTrak definite recommend of 52%, and 65% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The RT critical scote is at 89%, with reviewers embracing all the new elements the film brings to the franchise and the zombie sub-genre in general.
Overseas, where the previous two films doubled their money, 28 Years Later managed to do the same by earning $30M in 59 markets (better than Sinners/on par with Nosferatu). It’s no surprise to see the UK leading the pack with a #1 $6.4M opening (the film is set in England), while Mexico ($2.7M) and the Middle East ($1.8M) round out the Top 3.
A follow-up to the film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, is scheduled for release in January 2026.
3. Elio
Disney/Pixar | NEW
$21M Domestic Opening Weekend | $35M Global Total
Disney and Pixar’s original sci-fi animated fable Elio stumbled over its opening weekend with $21M on 3,750 screens for a PSA of $5,600. As feared, this makes it the lowest opener in Pixar history under both 1995’s Toy Story ($29.1M unadjusted) and 2023’s Elemental ($29.6M). Among Disney animated movies, it’s in the same arena as the openings of 2008’s Bolt ($26.2M) and 2021’s Encanto ($27.2M). That’s also well behind DreamWorks’ January release Dog Man ($36M opening).
Here’s how the 3-Day looked, including $3M in Thursday previews…
- Friday – $9M
- Saturday – $6.6M
- Sunday – $5.4M
Like Elemental, Elio has proven to be a marketing challenge with no real emotional hook evident in the campaign beyond a kid hanging out with aliens. Considering Pixar is a studio with eight films that scored 97% or better on Rotten Tomatoes, Elio’s 85% critical score is not doing it any huge favors. However, PostTrak is solid at 4.5 out of 5 stars while its “A” CinemaScore (“A+” from under 25’s) is on-par with Elemental and hopefully an omen that it will leg it out as that 2023 movie did. If not, it always has a chance of becoming a streaming smash, as Disney’s underperformer Encanto ($230.8M WW) did in 2021.
Elio seems to have baffled international markets worse than North America, with a $14M overseas total from 80% of the eventual global footprint. Major markets in China, Japan, and Spain will release in the weeks ahead. That brings the global haul to $35M, surely a low point for a studio that is coming off a pinnacle with Inside Out 2‘s $1.69B.
Next Weekend
Next week brings two numerically-oriented titles to the marketplace, starting with Apple’s big tentpole bet, F1: The Movie, the racing drama starring Brad Pitt. Helmed by Tom Gun: Maverick‘s Joseph Kosinski, the film clearly has aspirations to do with Formula One what Maverick did with the Navy by relying on good, old-fashioned star power and spectacle, not to mention IMAX screens. Meanwhile, Universal and Blumhouse will test whether AI horror still has legs with M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to 2022’s $181.79M global grosser.
Sunday Studio Estimates | Weekend 25 – 2025
Total 3-Day Domestic Gross: $$126,291,841 | (-17% vs 2024)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | Locations | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| How to Train Your Dragon | $37,000,000 | 4,373 | $8,461 | $160,485,000 | 2 | Universal |
| 28 Years Later | $30,000,000 | 3,444 | $8,711 | $30,000,000 | 1 | Sony |
| Elio | $21,000,000 | 3,750 | $5,600 | $21,000,000 | 1 | Disney |
| Lilo & Stitch | $9,700,000 | 3,375 | $2,874 | $386,749,181 | 5 | Disney |
| Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | $6,550,000 | 2,603 | $2,516 | $178,379,000 | 5 | Paramount |
| Materialists | $5,815,506 | 2,844 | $2,045 | $23,920,137 | 2 | A24 |
| Ballerina | $4,535,000 | 2,537 | $1,788 | $51,118,000 | 3 | Lionsgate |
| Karate Kid: Legends | $2,400,000 | 2,006 | $1,196 | $49,376,000 | 4 | Sony |
| Final Destination Bloodlines | $1,885,000 | 1,342 | $1,405 | $134,804,000 | 6 | Warner Bros. |
| Kuberaa | $1,713,841 | 500 | $3,428 | $1,713,841 | 1 | Prathyangira Cinemas |
| The Phoenician Scheme | $1,400,000 | 1,101 | $1,272 | $16,216,000 | 4 | Focus Features |
| Sitaare Zameen Par | $1,087,662 | 554 | $1,963 | $1,087,662 | 1 | Shree International |
| The Life of Chuck | $1,005,000 | 1,072 | $938 | $4,675,268 | 3 | Neon |
| Sinners | $820,000 | 536 | $1,530 | $277,259,000 | 10 | Warner Bros. |
| Thunderbolts* | $440,000 | 420 | $1,048 | $189,513,761 | 8 | Disney |
| Bring Her Back | $387,830 | 406 | $955 | $18,916,588 | 4 | A24 |
| The Last Rodeo | $292,731 | 305 | $960 | $14,819,299 | 5 | Angel Studios |
| Friendship | $109,164 | 141 | $774 | $16,065,495 | 7 | A24 |
| The Unholy Trinity | $86,835 | 320 | $271 | $929,072 | 2 | Roadside Attractions |
| Jane Austen Wrecked My Life | $35,526 | 44 | $807 | $1,736,628 | 5 | Sony Pictures Classics |
| Familiar Touch | $11,600 | 1 | $11,600 | $11,600 | 1 | Music Box Films |
| Dogtooth (Re-Release) | $10,126 | 4 | $2,532 | $10,126 | 1 | Kino Lorber |
| Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore | $6,020 | 1 | $6,020 | $6,020 | 1 | Kino Lorber |
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