'How To Train Your Dragon' Soars To The Top As 'Alita' Dominates Overseas [Box Office]

With the Oscars coming later tonight, many film fans have their minds set on the best that 2018 had to offer. However, this weekend’s box office domestic top 10 finally has gotten rid of its 2018 offerings, and in doing so, we’re starting to get a peek at what might be some of the bigger films of the first half of 2019. And while we don’t know what the rest of the year is going to bring (our guess is a lot of superheroes at the top of the box office), we do know that people still love their animated dragon films.

Debuting at the top of the list this week is “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.” The third installment in the ‘Dragon’ film franchise (there’s also some popular TV outings), ‘Hidden World’ stormed into the box office with an impressive $55.5 million first weekend. Much like how the previous two films were hugely successful with ticket buyers and critics alike, the third film seems to be riding high on great reviews and positive public opinion. The film has already been playing around the world for weeks, and now sports an impressive $275 million global cume.

While not its official debut weekend, the WWE-produced film “Fighting with My Family,” written and directed by comedy vet Stephen Merchant, expanded nationwide and pulled in $8 million, good for #4. Starring relative unknown (but always incredible) Florence Pugh, ‘Family’ has apparently capitalized on its built-in WWE fanbase (the film tells the true-life story of one of the biggest wrestling personalities), surprisingly strong reviews (currently at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes), and a great marketing campaign (which makes the film feel more like a ‘Rocky’ movie instead of a WWE marketing stunt).

Another positive debut comes from former NFL star, who has now become an evangelical superstar, Tim Tebow. His first executive producer credit comes with the film “Run the Race,” which debuted at #10 with $2.3 million from less than 1,000 screens. We’re approaching the spring, which means Easter, which means an uptick in faith-based fare at the multiplex. It appears that the Tebow-led film is the first film out of the gate and taking advantage of an activated religious audience that loves to show up in droves to the theater.

Outside of the new films this weekend, the big story continues to be “Alita: Battle Angel.” Similar to “Aquaman,” the James Cameron-written/produced sci-fi film has, so far, done better than analysts originally feared, leading to some impressive box office numbers. However, unlike “Aquaman,” ‘Alita’ still probably won’t do enough box office to turn a profit for Fox at this time. That being said, as we have learned yet again, you can’t bet against the mighty power of Cameron and the spending power of China.

In its second weekend at the domestic box office, ‘Alita’ dropped 58% and earned $12 million, leading to a total of $60.7 million locally. The drop, which is average-to-not-great, seems to follow the trajectory that many analysts predicted, which means that ‘Alita’ will, no doubt, struggle to reach $100 million in North America and taken by itself, is a disappointment considering the film’s massive budget. That being said, the world is much larger than just North America, and outside of our borders, ‘Alita’ is doing pretty great.

In its first weekend in China, ‘Alita’ earned an impressive $62 million (though according to reports, the weekend total is closer to $65 million), That incredible number has propelled the global cume for the sci-fi film to $263 million. At this point, depending on the staying power in China, the film could eclipse the $400 million global mark. While still not profitable, this is a number that might give folks like Cameron the idea to expand the universe with a sequel (or two, as he’s stated the franchise has trilogy aspirations). With “Captain Marvel” coming March 8, and the Chinese film “The Wandering Earth” continuing to dominate (currently stands at $647 million, just in its home country), there are still plenty of questions surrounding ‘Alita’s’ long-term play. But alas, so far, so good.

(Side Note: As a fun bit of speculation and debate, it’s interesting to see how James Cameron has seemingly made a great name for himself in China, which is a box office powerhouse quickly eclipsing the US. Granted, studios only receive about 25% of the ticket sales in China, far less than in North America. Does this mean that the upcoming “Avatar” sequels, starting in 2020, have a chance at becoming massive, Marvel Studios-level or bigger, Chinese hits? Perhaps the biggest thing that ‘Alita’ has done for the filmmaker is act as a calling card to a country that loves its SFX tentpoles. So, even though ‘Avatar’ doesn’t have the same street cred here that it did a decade ago, China could be its greatest asset moving forward. We shall see.)

At this point, you might be saying, “But Charles, what about those films from last weekend?” Well, the short answer is that most of them did between 45% and 51% drops and are pacing pretty well, especially “Happy Death Day 2U,” which needed (and got) a strong hold after debuting well behind its predecessor. But if you want to talk comparisons to previous entries in the franchise, we must quickly talk ‘LEGO Movie 2.’

With a drop of 52% from last weekend’s already terribly low debut, “The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” earned only $10 million this weekend domestically, leaving it with only $83.6 million total. We haven’t seen franchise fatigue this bad, when compared to previous entries, since “Transformers: The Last Knight” failed to come close to its predecessors. At this point, ‘LEGO Movie 2’ currently is pacing an astonishing $50 million behind ‘LEGO Batman’ and $100 million behind the original ‘LEGO Movie,’ through the same number of days. With strong reviews, and positive word-of-mouth polling, the only explanation for this has to be the public’s general excitement for the ‘LEGO’ franchise waning. As Disney found out with “Star Wars,” there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing” and you have to carefully pace these releases. There isn’t such a difference between the films that Marvel Studios has that allows the studio to schedule three films a year. With ‘LEGO’ and “Star Wars,” among every other major franchise, you have to make the audience miss you before coming back. An expensive, perhaps franchise-derailing, message to learn for Warner Bros.

Next weekend is the calm before the “Captain Marvel” shitstorm, as it were. With all eyes on the Brie Larson-led superhero film (in the wake of it’s offscreen, publicity drama), the next frame only sees debuts of the latest Tyler Perry ‘Madea’ film (something about death or a funeral or whatnot) and the Isabelle Huppert/Chloe Grace Moretz thriller “Greta.” Come back and read about all the fun stats in seven days, will ya?

Here’s the entire domestic top 10 for February 22 to 24:
1. How to Train Your Dragon 3 – $55.5M (Debut)
2. Alita: Battle Angel – $12M ($60.7M Overall)
3. The LEGO Movie 2 – $10M ($83.6M)
4. Fighting with My Family – $8M ($8.2M)
5. Isn’t It Romantic? – $7.5M ($33.8M)
6. What Men Want – $5.2M ($45M)
7. Happy Death Day 2U – $5M ($21.6M)
8. Cold Pursuit – $3.3M ($27M)
9. The Upside – $3.2M ($99.7M)
10. Run the Race – $2.3M (Debut)