
‘How to Train Your Dragon' live-action remake has mythical box office opener
It breathed fire into the box office.
'How to Train Your Dragon' had a mythical day in theaters on Friday, its opener, landing in first place with $35.6 million in sales, according to The Numbers.
The live-action remake of the 2010 DreamWorks Animation film, which The Post said 'is nice, but doesn't always soar,' had the fourth-biggest opening of 2025.
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It is slated to enjoy a three-day gross of $82.7 million, as per Variety.
'Materialists' landed in second, with earnings of just over $5.1 million.
3 'How to Train Your Dragon,' the live-action remake of the 2010 DreamWorks Animation film, landed in first place on its opening day.
AP
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The rom-com, which is set in NYC and centers around a love-triangle of its main characters, played by Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, is projected to take in around $12 million until Sunday.
The Post said 'watching the new, unromantic, non-comedy,' 'can feel like going on a shaky first date.'
3 In 'Materialists,' Pedro Pascal plays a millionaire private-equity investor.
Courtesy Everett Collection
The live-action remake 'Lilo & Stitch,' moved down a notch from last week to third place, with $4.7 million in revenue.
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It's already surpassed the $800 million mark globally and is on track to reach $1 billion, according to Deadline.
3 The live-action remake 'Lilo & Stitch' set the record as the biggest four-day Memorial Day weekend domestic opening of all time.
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection
Falling down a spot to fourth was 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' with just over a $2.25 million dollar take.
'Karate Kid: Legends' remained in fifth, with $1.25 million in sales.
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
‘How to Train Your Dragon' Tops Box Office With $83 Million
The dragon stuck his landing. Universal's live-action 'How to Train Your Dragon' remake, about a young Viking and his winged sidekick, Toothless, will take in about $83 million at North American theaters from Thursday through Sunday, box office analysts said. Based on advance ticket sales and surveys that track moviegoer interest, analysts had expected the film to sell closer to $70 million. The PG-rated movie, which cost at least $250 million to make and market, was on pace to collect an additional $118 million overseas, for a worldwide opening-weekend total of roughly $201 million. Reviews were mostly positive. Universal and its parent company, NBCUniversal, have been counting on 'How to Train Your Dragon' to do more than revive a theatrical franchise dormant since 2019. The characters are a prominent part of an ambitious expansion at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. NBCUniversal has also been trying to build 'How to Train Your Dragon' into a bigger consumer products business. In other words, nothing short of blockbuster opening-weekend ticket sales for the new movie would do — and families cooperated. All of a sudden, live-action PG movies have been propping up the movie business. 'A Minecraft Movie,' released by Warner Bros. in April, has sold a colossal $952 million in tickets worldwide. Disney's live-action 'Lilo & Stitch' remake has taken in more than $800 million since arriving late last month. PG movies (especially live-action ones) have long been viewed by Hollywood as somewhat limited in box office appeal: It's better to go for a broader audience — teenagers and older adults in addition to families — by making movies that get a PG-13 rating. Studios made 771 movies with the edgier rating from 2019 to 2024, according to The Numbers, a box office database. There were 467 rated PG over the same period, and many were animated. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
The ‘How to Train Your Dragon' Star Mason Thames Is Still Freaking Out
Mason Thames was very, very nervous. The actor, then 15 years old, had arrived in London for another round of auditions on his quest to land the lead role in Universal's live-action adaptation of 'How to Train Your Dragon,' and the pressure was mounting. He had been a toddler when the original DreamWorks Animation film was released in 2010, and he grew up obsessing over the animated trilogy about Hiccup, a teenage Viking who befriends an injured dragon named Toothless. Now, the chance to play his childhood hero was within his grasp. As Thames fretted between chemistry readings with potential co-stars, Nico Parker, the actress who would eventually land the role of Hiccup's love interest, Astrid, caught a glimpse of his anxious energy. 'He was pacing back and forth, and my chest hurt from how cute he was,' Parker, who was then 18, recalled. 'He was just the sweetest little angel; I can't even put it into words.' Thames continued to be on edge as the two actors performed a scene together for the film's executives. But when he delivered one of his scripted comedic lines, Parker broke character and burst out laughing, causing Thames to follow suit. Her flub, Thames said, instantly put him at ease and changed the course of the session. It wasn't until after they'd both won the roles that he learned the truth: 'She said she messed up on purpose to make me feel better because she saw how nervous I was,' Thames said. 'That was the sweetest thing anybody could have ever done.' (Parker noted that she was also nervous. 'I was just trying to hide it a bit more than he was.') Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Materialists' filmmaker Celine Song on being critical, not cynical about romance in movie with Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal
Celine Song's "Materialists" is a unique take on the rom-com, a film that really breaks down the fantasy of the genre. Starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, it's unlike any other romance movie you've seen before. Speaking to Yahoo Canada Toronto, Song talked about the "dehumanization" and "commodification" of dating. Additionally, she spoke about how her cast was able to resonate with being "merchandise" to be "sold for the highest price." I'm probably not someone you want to date because the next person I date I'm gonna marry. Are you hitting on me? I think it would be really easy to make something like this really cynical about love that would be like a really easy road to go down, but what you do is really play with like these fantasies that we get to see in rom-coms and these fantasies that we have about love life and what did you think about just in terms of being able to be critical but not being cynical? Well, I think that that really is at the heart of like what it's like to love in the modern world. In general, I feel like that contradiction is a part of like all of our lives because there are so many reasons to be cynical and there's so and it's easy to be cynical and I think that it's kind of like we're surrounded by it and it's uh and it's cooler to be cynical. So I think there's such a pool to think of love in a cynical way, but I think that on the other hand, there is this a very powerful thing that is an ancient mystery. That has been something that uh you know they say it's uh makes life worth living right there's so much of it when it comes to love and the power of love it's the one that endures and that's gonna be a part of us as the human beings for the rest of the rest of the human beings so I think it really that contradiction between the cynical and the romantic has to be a part of any story about love, especially. If it intends to have something to say about the way we love in 2025, right? So I think that it really came from the necessity of that and it's the way that, you know, and I think depending on who's watching the movie we're gonna have a different relationship to the it's cynicism and it's romanticism. I think when we kind of see without spoiling what happens in the movie but see something, you know, really tragic happen with Lucy's clients, but I do think that. As a basic concept, the take the second that you start kind of dehumanizing things, tragic consequences are going to happen, which is what we see and what did you just think about in terms of being able to really use that moment to kind of be that reflection of the kind of consequences of dehumanization. It is inevitable, right? Because after all this like commodification or objectification of ourselves and each other at first it feels like, well we're just playing a game, right? Well, in pursuit of love, but we're. Actually just playing this game, this dating game, and then the truth is that once you have uh thoroughly commodified and objectified ourselves and each other and there's uh and part of that is going to inspire a lot of self hatred and a lot of self uh failure to accept oneself, which is something that Lucy deals with whether she's willing to face it in the beginning of the film or not. And then of course uh the end of objectification, any objectification of a person is uh going to be uh dehumanization. And that's what you see happen to Sophie and Sophie is somebody who has the probably the most important line in the whole film where she goes, I'm not merchandise, I'm a person. And to me that's the running theme of the whole film. It's about how all of us in the face of love in the face of this uh beautiful. ancient, impossible mystery, this miracle, right? It's the one way that the miracle still exists. Love is a miracle. So in the face of miracle, uh, in pursuit of this miracle, I think that you have to be able to say, well, just for me to even dream of that miracle, I'm not merchandise, I'm a person. Dakota is really interesting in this because I think she does such a phenomenal job just on kind of surface, but I think it's interesting watching her in this role of someone who is looking at kind of her self-worth and her self value because I think the thing that we all know walking into this is that she has a big family legacy in Hollywood and the the concept of having attention put on her. What did you kind of talk to her about just in terms of getting into this character that is a bit of a chameleon? Well, I think that is exactly this she has uh I think that all of us understand this as a modern person as in like, well you're you're a woman on a job or you're sometimes you're a woman in your private life, but so much of it you have to be a chameleon as you move through these spaces. And you have to be different kinds of fantasies and and realities for so many different people in your life and I think the question always comes well but then who am I? What is the thing that I actually value and I think that's so important that what you're talking about when it comes to uh this idea uh that I'm not merchandise I'm a person, which is something that I think all actors understand because so much of their work is their humanity, right? And you just get to the audience looks at their humanity. On display, on screen, and then they of course will objectify, commodify and judge it, right? They'll be like, they'll watch it on the phone, they'll be like, uh, you know, or like, good, you know, whatever it may be. And I think that all of Dakota, Chris and Pedro, they all understand in their own way what it's like to feel like merchandise, as you can imagine. So when the conversation about the movie with them is about how they're not merchandise but they're people and I was of course meeting them as people. Part of that is that you know like they understand and feel passionate about the movie uh from the get go because they understand that it's their world and I think that you're pointing to exactly the thing that is something that Dakota and I were talking about so much we were talking about how yeah but uh the surfaces, the the way that it's all seems there's a way that it all gets packaged into a thing that people can buy and consume and we turn ourselves into merchandise right and so that we can get sold for the highest price. Right, and of course that's where all the Botox and all the way that we are supposed to improve our value and I think that that was really at the center of what Dakota and I talked about, but the guys too guys understand so completely it's like to feel like a merchandise like you know Chris Chris or Pedro, um, there's a Chris and Pedro the merchandise, right? And then of course there's Chris and Pedro, the people, and every day, uh we're showing up to work, all four of us, uh talking about the people. The persons that we are, tell me a little bit about the collaboration with your cinematographer because I think that I love the, the kind of visual language of this film. What's amazing about working with Shabbi Krishna, my, uh, DP, is that, well, he and I, we worked on past lives together, which was the one other movie I made was my first movie. And uh, so because we already made a movie together and that collaboration was so amazing that my second movie we already. How to share language. So my one of my favorite things about uh making this movie was to shortlist with Shabier. We were talking through the entire movie and we made it in our minds uh visually already before we even uh rolled on day one. So I think that, you know, like we're and we're also dreaming it together in that way. We're talking about what the story is, what the focus is, and what I really love most about working with Shai. is that the storytelling is always going to be the um way that the camera moves. The storytelling is going to be the focus of the camera and then the way it moves, the way we lens, it's never going to be just about uh getting the prettiest shot. It's always gonna be about, yes, but what's happening with the character? And of course the character is, of course the three people on the poster, but it's also everybody else and it's also background, but it's also New York City. And it's really about also capturing the city that uh we all love um just as a way to really uh reveal it and to really show it. And I think so much of the conversation about how to capture it visually is about the revelation. And uh the way that we love it and liking a liking a thing and loving a thing is a different thing, right? Like uh loving a thing is also about loving the uh the darkest corners of it too, and that also applies to my characters, you know, the way that sometimes we wanna uh shoot my actors as these characters in a way where we are in love with them and not just like them, but just to really see them fully.