Soaring Sequels: How to Train Your Dragon Leads Again
There was a time when a sequel to a once independently-produced horror film would have been beaten handily by a new Pixar film. This is not that time. While things continue to soar in the right direction for live-action remakes, a wholly original film from the acclaimed animation company just couldn’t entice audiences away. That isn’t necessarily an indictment on moviegoer’s appetite for non-IP titles, but perhaps the latest chapter in their disinterest in animated science fiction.
Leading the way again this week was the 2025 edition of How To Train Your Dragon. For the fifth straight week, a live-action remake of an animated film has led the box office, earning $37 million to bring its 10-day total to $160.4 million. That ranks 19th on the all-time list for June releases in that period, ahead of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ($157.9 million) and behind Monsters University ($170.4 million). Dragon’s 56.3% drop puts its second weekend closer to Monsters but right in line with Transformers: Age of Extinction, which was also $15 million ahead of its pace. Last week we referenced that Transformers film as the lowest grossing film among June’s top 20 openings ($245.4 million). Dragon’s drops going forward should be better than Extinction, but it certainly has some ground to make up to avoid becoming the new low bar for June’s 20 best openings. We’ll put its end run in the $240-260 million range. Worldwide the film is over $358 million, headed well into profit and likely becoming the fourth non-Ne Zha 2 release to hit a half billion.
Tales of the top 10: 28 Years Later Tops Elio, Pixar’s Lowest Opener
Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later is still the 13th-highest grossing domestic release in the history of Searchlight Pictures (formerly Fox Searchlight). It made over $45 million back in 2003. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later, released under the label of Fox Atomic, did not do as well, grossing $28.6 million in May of 2007. Now, 22 years after the original release, we get 28 Years Later, backed by Sony with a return of the original director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland. The reported cost is $60 million, higher than Boyle’s highest budget (The Beach – $50 million) and more than 2.5 times higher than the combined cost ($23 million) of Days and Weeks. In its first three days it grossed $30 million. Not too shabby.
By next weekend it will be Boyle’s third-highest grossing film behind only his Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire ($141.3 million) and his last film, Yesterday ($73.2 million). Sony may like the shinier estimate of $30 million, but there have only been five R-rated films opening in June under $32 million to reach $100 million domestic over the last 20 years (Knocked Up, Bad Teacher, Spy, This is the End, and Baby Driver). Where did you go, R-rated summer comedies? A big drop next week could end the nine-digit discussion faster than the rage-infected people in the movie, but the film has made $60 million globally, nearly as much as Weeks’ total, with Days in reach. If the international total can stay ahead of the domestic total, Years should be able to get into profit during its theatrical run.
History was made this weekend with the latest from Disney/Pixar. Their animated sci-fi film, Elio, finished in third place with the lowest opening ever from the animation company at $21 million. The original Toy Story opened to $29.1 million back in 1995. No film from Pixar had opened to lower than that since then, though Elemental came close in 2023 with $29.6 million. This is also just one year after Inside Out 2 became one of the 10 highest-grossing domestic releases of all time.
People will point to how analysts jumped all over the low start of Elemental, only to see it gross over five times its opening ($154.4 million) and just shy of half a billion worldwide. At best, no one could ever refer to it as a bomb, nor even a financial loser of any kind, though it was still one of the lowest in Pixar’s profit margin vs. budgets. Elio arrives with a reported cost of $150 million, less than Elemental’s $200 million and actually lower than any Pixar release since 2007’s Ratatouille.
What should be pointed out is how, with the exception of Pixar’s WALL-E, space-based animated sci-fi has had trouble drawing in audiences over the years. Look no further than Pixar’s Lightyear in 2022, grossing just $118 million, which remains the company’s lowest-grossing film that wasn’t shut down by the pandemic (Onward). But let’s look anyway at titles such as Escape From Planet Earth, Planet 51, Treasure Planet, 9, Space Chimps, Titan A.E., and Mars Needs Moms. Only one of those films grossed over $50 million.
Elio would like to avoid that list (and very likely will), but the last time an animated film opened in June to less than $25 million and still made it to $100 million was Chicken Run in 2000. Animated sci-fi issues notwithstanding, also take note that Elemental, once the second lowest Pixar opening of all time, is still the best opening for an original animated film since Onward in 2020. Beyond that, you have Encanto ($27.2 million), Abominable ($20.6 million), and Wish ($19.6 million). So that makes Elio the third-best original animated opening since the pandemic. Glass full? Pixar has only had three films that failed to gross three times its opening weekend (Lightyear, Cars 2
