Source: Entertainment Weekly

This weekend it was dragons vs. zombies at the box office, and both came out on top.

While Dreamworks’ live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon narrowly prevented Danny Boyle’s zombie gore-fest 28 Years Later from sinking its teeth into box office gold, the numbers represent a victory for both films.

How to Train Your Dragon premiered to an astounding $83.7 million domestically and $197.8 globally last weekend, and held strong in week two for a $37 million domestic and $90.5 million global take, per Comscore. That represents a 44 percent drop domestically and a 45 percent drop globally, both modest for a film of its scale. The film now stands at a $160.4 domestic gross and $358.1 million global gross, with that latter number rating higher than this year’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3, 2019’s How to Train Your Dragon 3, and 2023’s The Little Mermaid at the same point in their box office runs.

28 Years Later, the third installment in the paradigm-shifting horror franchise from director Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland — which actually comes 23 years after the kick-off, 28 Days Later — took in $30 million at the domestic markets and $60 million globally in its opening weekend. Those numbers mark the most profitable premiere in Boyle’s career, though the film tails far behind the year’s biggest horror premiere, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which earned $45.6 million back in April.

Elio (voice of Yonas Kibreab), a space fanatic with an active imagination, finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, eccentric alien lifeforms.

Opening to $21 million domestically and $35 million globally, the animated alien adventure becomes Pixar’s worst box office open when you take into account its massive showing on 3,750 screens. That makes for a dismal per theater average of $5,600. Compare that to How to Train Your Dragon’s PTA of $8,461 in it second week of release.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’ scorches box office with $83 million domestic premiere

Still, the Pixar offering took the third place spot on the domestic and global leaderboard, with Lilo & Stitch earning No. 4 on both with a $9.7 million domestic take and $29.4 million global take in its fifth week of release. Its grosses now stand at $386.7 million domestic and $910.3 million globally, all but assuring it a $1 billion mint in the coming weeks.

The last spot on the coveted box office top five was divided this weekend between the domestic and global charts. At home, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s $6.5 million take (making for a $178.3 million cumulative gross) comfortably placed it at No. 5. But it fell to No. 6 globally due to the insurgent performance of the Hong Kong crime drama She’s Got No Name, whose superstar lead Zhang Ziyi and renowned director Peter Chan boosted the film to No. 5 with $26.5 million from the Chinese market alone.

The other is M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to James Wan’s babgirl-ified AI horror from 2022. The sequel smartly reteams the principal cast and crew, including director Gerard Johnstone, screenwriter Akela Cooper, and star Allison Williams.

“When the movie came out, watching people have so much fun with it and enjoy the experience in a theater, channeling her, using her in memes, learning the dance is just the greatest ever,” Williams told Entertainment Weekly in a preview of the film back in December.

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