‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ Launches with $50 Million

DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 opened in second place this weekend with an estimated $50 million. The film trailed the $60 million debut of another sequel, 22 Jump Street, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who also directed the animated feature The LEGO Movie, which opened with $69 million earlier this year.

Box Office Mojo writes that the Dean DeBlois-written-and-directed Dragons 2 failed to live up to industry expectations, especially after factoring in its release date and the original film’s reputation:

In second place, DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 opened to an estimated $50 million. That’s an improvement over the first movie’s $43.7 million, though it’s far from the type of gain expected given the fact that the first Dragon is only of the most beloved animated movies of the past decade. It’s also the first June animated release to fall short of $60 million since Ratatouille opened to $47 million back in 2007.

Dragons 2, however, is playing better overseas, breaking opening weekend records in Singapore ($1.7M) and Malaysia ($2.3M), as well as debuting with $12.8M in Russia. Overall, the film earned $24.8M internationally from 26 markets.

Disney’s live-action Maleficent, based on the animated feature Sleeping Beauty, also continued to perform well both in the United States and abroad. It earned an estimated $19M domestically in its third weekend, which was good enough for third place. Its U.S. total now stands at $163.5M. Overseas, it picked up $37.2M for an international total of $272.9M.