‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Beats Six Beloved Animated Blockbusters in One Weekend at the Global Box Office

Having completed a full month of release in theaters worldwide, Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon remake has firmly established itself as a hit. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion, especially with a few other live-action remakes underperforming at the box office recently. One of them, Snow White, was an outright bomb, having grossed just over $200 million against a reported budget of over $250 million. Not only did How to Train Your Dragon cost less than that film, it has also generated over twice as much as it did globally. This weekend, it overtook as many as six beloved animated hits.

With $240 million domestically and $320 million from overseas markets, How to Train Your Dragon‘s cumulative global haul currently stands at $560 million. It reportedly cost $150 million to produce, which is relatively low for a tent pole of this magnitude. We must remember that the movie was always supposed to spawn sequels and inspire further remakes; a follow-up has already been set for 2027. But the studio knew it had a good film on hand, presenting it in its entirety at the CinemaCon event weeks ahead of its commercial release. The How to Train Your Dragon films have become millennial favorites over the last decade and a half, and their core audience showed up to support the remake in large numbers.

The film’s $560 million global haul puts it ahead of past hits such as Monsters, Inc., Cars 2, Madagascar, Puss in Boots, Brave, and Kung Fu Panda 4. These movies have all grossed between $547 million (Kung Fu Panda 4) and $560 million (Monsters, Inc.). How to Train Your Dragon is now also the second-biggest film in the franchise, having overtaken the lifetime global haul of the 2010 original, and the 2019 film How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It will now set its sights on passing the $614 million lifetime haul of How to Train Your Dragon 2, which it realistically could.

A Remake of ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ Has Already Been Set

The movie earned mostly positive reviews, with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt calling it “the gold-star example of how to do a live-action remake right.” It’s currently sitting on an excellent 97% audience score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Crafted with loving fidelity to the animated classic by original co-director Dean DeBlois, How to Train Your Dragon doesn’t best the first iteration but still reaches enchanting heights of its own.” A remake of How to Train Your Dragon 2, also directed by Dean DeBlois, will be released in 2027. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.