Although Dumbo didn’t soar quite the way Disney probably hoped when it opened this past weekend, another family friendly film continues to fly high at the box office over a month after its release. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, the final film in DreamWorks Animation and Universal/Comcast’s venerated series, crossed another milestone at the box office this past weekend: $500 million worldwide.
If you’re going to go out, do it on a high note, and How to Train Your Dragon 3 is doing just that, earning over half a billion dollars worldwide to date, according to Forbes. The animated threequel actually crossed a pair of box office milestones this weekend, with its roughly $4.2 million domestic haul, good for 7th place in its 6th weekend in release, pushing it past $150 million domestically.
These box office milestones are just the latest accolades that The Hidden World can claim after a domestic debut of $55.5 million that broke records for the franchise on opening weekend. The Hidden World is also the third-biggest film of 2019, and Toothless and Hiccup’s soaring performance thus far ensures that this $129 million film will be viewed as a success, but it may not wind up being the biggest movie in the franchise overall.
The first film in this franchise, 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon, finished its run just shy of the $500 million mark, earning $494.9 million worldwide with $217.6 million of that coming from the North American box office, according to Box Office Mojo. By passing the $500 million milestone, the third film has now eclipsed the original’s worldwide total, but is still a ways away from matching it domestically.
The original had a pretty close split in terms of domestic and overseas box office revenues, but the sequels have been much more heavily weighted towards the international box office. How to Train Your Dragon 2, which opened in 2014, still stands as the biggest film in the series overall, with a huge $621.5 worldwide haul, with less than 30% of that, $177 million, coming from the domestic box office.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has yet to match either the domestic or worldwide total of its predecessor with the biggest difference coming internationally, where How to Train Your Dragon 2 made close to $100 million more than the third film. So with The Hidden World winding down its run here and abroad, that $621.5 million may be out of reach.
It should be noted though that the second film also cost a fair bit more, so that narrows the gap between the two when all the numbers are being counted. And with over $500 million worldwide, sterling critical and audience reviews, and perhaps an Oscar case, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a great and successful way for this franchise to fly off into the sunset.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is now playing. Check out what we thought of the film and keep up with our 2019 release schedule to see all the movies headed your way this year.
