Box Office: Brad Pitt's New Record-Breaking Racing Movie Dethrones How To Train Your Dragon

F1: The Movie has had a record-breaking opening weekend at the domestic box office. The new movie, which was directed by Top Gun: Maverick‘s Joseph Kosinski and stars Brad Pitt as fictional Formula One driver Sonny Hayes, is a H๏τly anticipated property that also features Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, and Javier Bardem.

The F1: The Movie release kicked off during the reign of the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. The DreamWorks movie opened on June 13, taking No. 1 at the domestic box office with a 3-day opening weekend of $84.6 million. It also topped the chart during its sophomore weekend, beating new releases 28 Years Later and Elio.

Per ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, as of Saturday morning, F1: The Movie is projected to earn a 3-day opening weekend of $55 million at the domestic box office. This marks the best opening weekend in history for an Apple Studios movie. On Friday, it had already surged past the previous record-holder, 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon (which debuted with $23.2 million).

$55 million is more than enough for F1: The Movie to topple How to Train Your Dragon from the top spot on the domestic chart during its third weekend. It also far exceeds its fellow new release, which is the Blumhouse killer robot sequel M3GAN 2.0.

While 2023’s M3GAN was an $180 million smash hit, the sequel is only projected to debut with $10.4 million, which falls considerably short compared to the original’s $30.4 million opening weekend.

What This Means For F1: The Movie

It Is On Track For Success Despite Its Huge Budget

The new Brad Pitt movie is off to a remarkable start in more ways than one. In addition to being projected to earn the eighth-best domestic debut of 2025 so far, it will also become one of the 15 highest-grossing domestic movies of the year in a matter of just three days.

However, the release still has a way to climb. The reported budget of F1: The Movie is $200 million. Generally, movies need to earn back two and a half times their budgets in order to break even in theaters, which means that it might need to surpᴀss $500 million worldwide in order to be considered profitable in theaters.

Only three Hollywood movies (A Minecraft Movie, Lilo & Sтιтch, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning) have surpᴀssed that milestone so far in 2025, and each of them had a higher opening weekend than F1: The Movie ($162.7 million, $146 million, and $64 million respectively).

However, F1: The Movie has an ace up its sleeve because, as an Apple Studios production, it has always been intended for an eventual Apple TV+ streaming release. This means that its box office is a bonus on top of its eventual subscriber revenue, so it is likely on track to succeed even if it doesn’t quite hit $500 million.

Our Take On The Weekend Box Office

Family Movies Are No Longer Dominating The Summer

While M3GAN 2.0 is not showing as much promise as its initial projections (which had it opening around $30 million), the success of F1: The Movie gives the summer its first adult-oriented hit. The chart has been dominated by Lilo & Sтιтch and How to Train Your Dragon since Memorial Day, so the reign of family movies has now ended.

The success of F1: The Movie could ignite a run of PG-13 movies taking No. 1, as July will see the arrival of the upcoming Jurᴀssic World Rebirth, Superman, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, with only the PG-rated Smurfs and the R-rated I Know What You Did Last Summer shaking things up when they premiere simultaneously on July 18.

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Source: ᴅᴇᴀᴅline