How to Train Your Dragon has had a record-breaking opening weekend. The 2025 movie is the fourth installment in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, which is loosely based on the children’s book series of the same name by Cressida Cowell. It is a live-action remake of the original 2010 DreamWorks animated movie, following young Viking Hiccup (Mason Thames) bonding with an injured dragon that he names Toothless, in the process learning that his village, Berk, should be working together with dragons instead of fighting them.

Per Variety, as of Sunday morning, How to Train Your Dragon is projected to take in a 3-day debut gross of $83 million by the end of its opening weekend. In addition to pushing the movie past its original projections, this total means that the new installment has earned the best opening weekend of the entire four-film franchise. It also allows the movie to easily claim the No. 1 slot on the domestic box office chart, ending the reign of fellow live-action remake Lilo & Sтιтch after it topped the chart for three consecutive weekends. See the Top 5 below:

The other notable debut of the weekend is the Celine Song romance Materialists, which features a star-studded cast that includes Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal. The movie debuted at No. 3 with $12 million, marking the third-best opening weekend ever for A24, behind Hereditary and Civil War. This also marks the first time this summer that two new releases have debuted in the Top 3 since Memorial Day weekend, when Lilo & Sтιтch opened at No. 1, followed by Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning at No. 2.

Both of those Memorial Day weekend тιтles have fallen one spot apiece. The Final Reckoning fell from No. 3 to No. 4 with a narrow 31% drop that trumps Lilo & Sтιтch‘s 52%. However, even though Sтιтch now faces major compeтιтion from a new live-action remake, that is not the worst drop for the Disney movie, which previously fell 57.7% during its sophomore weekend, indicating that both remakes may be able to thrive in domestic theaters simultaneously.

The harshest fall of all belongs to the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, which was hit with a steep 62% drop, causing it to plummet from its debut position at No. 2 all the way to the bottom of the chart at No. 5. However, its cumulative domestic total has pushed it past the $40 million milestone.

Meanwhile, with two debut releases on the chart, two other тιтles have had to leave in order to make room. Those would be the martial arts legacy sequel Karate Kid: Legends, which is falling from No. 4 to No. 6 with $5 million at a 41% drop during its third weekend. The hit horror sequel Final Destination Bloodlines has also exited the Top 5 for the first time, falling from No. 5 to No. 7 during its fifth weekend with $3.9 million at a 40% drop.

What This Means For How To Train Your Dragon

It’s On Track To Be A Major Hit

This record-breaking kickoff to the How to Train Your Dragon release sees the new movie exceeding the previous highest-grossing installment (2019’s The Hidden World) by almost exactly $30 million. This is a huge leap, considering the fact that the previous movies all debuted in a range between $43.7 and $55 million. Because those movies also had relatively consistent returns on investment, this could mean that the new movie is also on track to become the highest-grossing movie in the franchise in general. Below, see a breakdown of the box office performance of the three feature-length animated installments in the franchise:

The global multipliers for each previous installment in the franchise have been outstanding, as they have earned an average of 11.2 times their domestic debuts by the end of their respective worldwide theatrical runs. If 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon follows their lead, it could potentially gross $925 million or more by the end of its run. That would make it one of the highest-grossing movies of the year, as only two movies (Ne Zha 2 and A Minecraft Movie) have pᴀssed that milestone so far, with an additional one (Lilo & Sтιтch) on track to do so soon.

Our Take On The Weekend Box Office

How To Train Your Dragon Is Only The Summer’s Second Big Blockbuster

So far, live-action remakes have been dominating the summer box office, propping up the domestic market in addition to being set to make huge returns on investment given their relatively low costs (the reported budget of How to Train Your Dragon is $150 million, and Lilo & Sтιтch is even cheaper at $100 million, which is slim for a modern blockbuster). This is a good thing, because other IP movies such as Karate Kid: Legends and Ballerina have been performing comfortably but not becoming runaway hits, so the market needs the boost while awaiting the arrival of blockbusters like Superman.

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Source: Variety