July 10th, 2025
The Fourth of July weekend turned up some hefty numbers for newcomer Jurassic World Rebirth as the latest in the long-running Jurassic Park franchise snatched up just over $92 million during the three-day weekend and nearly $148 million since opening the previous Wednesday. The three-day opening figure places the film directly in the middle for best domestic openers in the franchise. Rebirth will once again retain its spot as the widest release but will unfortunately take a backseat to a newcomer, but familiar face, with the release of Superman.
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July 2nd, 2025
With the Fourth of July holiday again upon us, it means the summer season is in full swing, and with that, the release of another summer blockbuster. Last year it was Despicable Me 4, and this year, the latest installment in the popular Jurassic Park franchise, with the release of Jurassic World Rebirth.
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June 26th, 2025
The weekend box office proved to be a much tighter race for How to Train Your Dragon in its second go-around, staving off newcomer 28 Years Later for the repeat win, this time $36.58 million to the latter’s $30 million. The current leader will have its hands full this weekend, however, as Brad Pitt’s Formula One feature races into theaters along with horror sequel M3GAN 2.0, also setting her sights on toppling the reigning champ.
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June 15th, 2025
How to Train Your Dragon will open with about $83.7 million this weekend, according to Universal’s Sunday-morning prediction. While a little short of our model’s Friday-lunchtime prediction of $89.4 million, that’s a great result, particularly given that it’s easily the best weekend ever for the franchise, topping Hidden World’s $55 million debut back in 2019.
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June 13th, 2025
How to Train Your Dragon looks like a good bet to post the third-best weekend of the year after a strong set of previews on Wednesday and Thursday. Whether it can hit $100 million on debut, like Lilo & Stitch and A Minecraft Movie, will depend heavily on how it performs through the tail-end of the weekend.
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June 12th, 2025
It was another win for Lilo & Stitch at the domestic box office over the weekend, with the film posting over $32 million in its third frame, outpointing newcomer Ballerina by nearly $8 million, and taking its 17-day North American total to $335.66 million. The animated feature will yield to another newcomer this weekend as How to Train Your Dragon makes its way into theaters.
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June 5th, 2025
Lilo & Stitch once again dominated the weekend box office by grabbing just short of $62 million in its second go-around, catapulting its total to an impressive $279 million. After fending off both Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning and newcomer Karate Kid: Legends last weekend, the film will face a much stiffer test this weekend as From the World of John Wick: Ballerina makes its way into theaters.
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March 26th, 2020
As the movie industry tries to adapt to the the COVID-19 outbreak, we at The Numbers are adapting with them, although it might take another week or so to get our new columns and schedule set, so bear with us in the meantime. Or bare with us, the choice is yours. Starting today, we will have a new weekly column looking at the films and TV shows hitting popular streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. Of the titles on this week’s list. It is The Banker that has my attention the most.
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March 26th, 2020
With the COVID-19 outbreak causing mass shutdowns of non-essential businesses in a lot of places, theatrical releases are, for the most part, non-existent. However, the movie industry is trying to rapidly adapt to this and so are we. They are fast-tracking lots of theatrical releases to VOD and we will be expanding our coverage of VOD releases. Like last week, there are a lot of fast-tracked theatrical releases coming out this week, but we also have the more typical VOD premieres to talk about. Of the former category, Bad Boys for Life is clearly leading the way, although Birds of Prey is coming out on Friday rather than Tuesday, so it gets a jump on the action. Of the latter category, Banana Split is the film that I’m most interested in seeing. Sadly, there are so many major VOD releases this week that I fear it will slip between the cracks.
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February 20th, 2020
It’s a post-holiday weekend, so we are not expecting much at the box office. The Call of the Wild is earning good reviews, but not great reviews, while its buzz is far too quiet for its massive production budget. On the other hand, Brahms: The Boy II is a low-budget horror movie earning terrible reviews and frankly I’m sick of talking about these movies. Seriously. We are less than two months into the year and we’ve already at least four other low-budget horror movies to come out. I don’t want to hear anyone complain about too many super hero movies ever again. … Moving on. Neither of these two films are expected to challenge Sonic the Hedgehog for top spot on the box office chart. In fact, I’m not convinced Brahms will open in the top five. This weekend last year, the final installment of the How to Train Your Dragon opened with just over $55 million. There’s no way the box office will match that this year and 2020 is going to lose in the year-over-year competition unless the holdovers hold on a lot better than anticipated.
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May 21st, 2019
It is a very strange week on the home market. There are two $100 million hits, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and The Upside, a midlevel hit, Isn’t it Romantic, and then practically nothing. The week’s releases are more top-heavy than any other week I can remember. Fortunately, the biggest release of the week, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, is also one of the best wide releases of the year so far and it is easily the Pick of the Week. In fact, it would likely have won that title even if it was a busier than average week.
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February 27th, 2019
Alita: Battle Angel rose to first place with $92.42 in 82 markets for totals of $202.68 million internationally and $263.70 million worldwide. The film debuted in China with $63.26 million over the weekend for a total opening of $64.31 million. This is a great start in that market and better than the film’s predicted $50 million opening and even better than its early $60 million projection. It won’t be enough to save the film’s financial future, but it will be enough to save face. The film only made $3.2 million during its opening in Japan, which is disappointing, as the movie was based on a Manga / Anime from Japan and many assumed it would perform better there. The film has no more openings but should top $400 million internationally with relative ease and with a bit of luck, could get to $450 million. We will know more next week, once we see how long its legs will be in China.
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February 26th, 2019
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World not only led the way over the weekend, it had the fastest start of the year so far. This helped the overall box office grow to $127 million. This is 4.3% higher than last weekend, which might not seem impressive, but this is a post-holiday weekend and we usually see a substantial drop-off. On the other hand, this is still 34% lower than this weekend last year, as Black Panther’s sophomore stint was almost exactly double The Hidden World’s debut. This left 2019 even further behind 2018 and the gap is now 25% or $460 million at $1.36 billion to $1.82 billion.
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February 23rd, 2019
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is beating expectations with $17.49 million on Friday, putting it on pace for $60 million over the full weekend, including its $2.5 million from paid previews. This is more than enough to be the fastest opening in the franchise and it is easily the best opening of the year so far. It’s nice for a potential major hit to actually top expectations and this is the first time that’s happened all year. Hopefully the film’s reviews and word-of-mouth can continue to lift its box office chances over the full weekend and indeed over the next few weeks.
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February 21st, 2019
There’s only one true wide release this weekend, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, but it should become the fastest opening film of the year so far. Additionally, Fighting With My Family is expanding wide and after its stellar start last weekend, it should easily earn a spot in the top five. It likely won’t be able to top Alita: Battle Angel or The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, but it should be in a battle for fourth place with Isn’t It Romantic. On the positive side, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World should earn more than the three new wide releases from this weekend last year. On the negative side, Black Panther remained in top spot with closer to $120 million. 2019 is going to get destroyed in the year-over-year comparison, again, but at least it won’t be as bad as last week was.
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February 5th, 2019
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World roared into first place on the international chart with $40.8 million in 40 markets for a still early international total of $85.5 million. It was buoyed by a quartet of major market openings, led by Mexico, where it earned first place with $7.56 million in 891 theaters. This is 20% more than the previous film in the franchise opened with in that market. It also opened in first place in the U.K. ($6.95 million in 556 theaters) and in Italy ($3.67 million in 467). On the other hand, it had to settle for third place in South Korea with $3.30 million on 971 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $4.61 million. The film opens in France and Germany this weekend, but doesn’t finish its box office run until August, when it finally opens in Japan.
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February 1st, 2019
2019 got off to a slow start as the biggest release of January, Glass, missed expectations and as a result, 2019 lost every weekend in the year-over-year comparison. Unfortunately, 2019 isn’t going to turn things around this month, as last February, Black Panther broke all of the records. That doesn’t mean there are no bright spots this month. Both The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World are virtually guaranteed to reach $100 million domestically, while I wouldn’t be too surprised if one or both hit $200 million. Meanwhile, there are several midlevel hits, one of which could turn into a surprise $100 million hit. That said, there’s a chance all nine movies opening this month combined will earn less than Black Panther did last year.
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January 24th, 2019
We’re getting close to the monster hits from fall finally coming out on the home market. Closer, but we are not quite there yet. This week’s biggest release is First Man, but it is not the best. The race for Pick of the Week came down to three contenders: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Hate U Give, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Set Three. It was a close race, but in the end The Hate U Give won out.
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June 25th, 2014
Maleficent rose to first place with $47.9 million in 54 markets for totals of $340.8 million internationally and $526.7 million worldwide. It became the first live-action film in Angelina Jolie's career to reach the $500 million mark. The film opened in first place in China with $22.01 million. Up next for the film is Japan and if it does well there, it could top Kung Fu Panda 2 as Angelina Jolie's biggest hit.
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June 18th, 2014
There were three films that were in a virtual tie for top spot on the international top ten. Godzilla squeaked out a win with $38.4 million in 62 markets for totals of $248.7 million internationally and $440.2 million worldwide after a month of release. This includes a $37.00 million opening weekend in China. Needless to say, it earned first place in that market. The film finishes its international run in Japan at the end of July and it should jump over $500 million worldwide when it does.
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