Box Office Insider: ‘How to Train Your Dragon 3’ Soars Into First Place |

Each week on Atom Insider, we break down the box office numbers for all of the biggest films opening in theaters. This week sees the arrival of 2019’s first big weekend, now with DreamWorks Animation leading the pack.

This Week’s Top Earner – ‘How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’

DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon series has been distributed by three different studios since the first film came out in 2010, but Universal now enjoys the franchise’s best opening weekend with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. The high-flying animated trilogy capper brought in $55.5 million domestically, and worldwide it’s already made $274.9 million thanks to an early release in other markets.

That means The Hidden World is already the #3 highest-grossing film of 2019, behind The Wandering Earth and Crazy Alien (both are Chinese films). Despite this series reaching a fitting conclusion story-wise, it won’t be surprising if DreamWorks and Universal decide to pull a Toy Story 4 down the road to make the most of this success.

Second Place – ‘Alita: Battle Angel’

Not a ton of great news for Alita this week, at least in the states. Though the film gained a net of 12 theaters, it still dropped 57% and made only $12 million domestically. If not for its huge debut in China ($62.2 million), we’d have to consider Alita: Battle Angel a potential disaster for Fox, but the film is performing well overseas with a total of $263.3 million in its second week (making it the #4 film of 2019). At this point, we can reasonably assume the film will at least make some profit depending on the size of the marketing budget. But even if it only breaks even, signs point to a new franchise that might be less expensive to produce moving forward.

And Third – ‘The LEGO Movie: The Second Part’

Warner Bros.’ animated sequel performed just slightly under Alita, dropping 51% with $10 million domestic in its third weekend. And that’s despite losing nearly 500 theaters.

At $136.6 million worldwide, it’s looking like The LEGO Movie: The Second Part may finish its box office run just below of LEGO Batman from 2017, and far from where the first of these films landed in 2014. If you discount LEGO Ninjago, it’s clear this franchise is trending downward in a big way.

Read our review of The LEGO Movie: The Second Part.

Rounding Out The Rest Of The Box Office

The new MGM film Fighting with My Family expanded to wide release this week, so it jumped from #41 to #4 practically overnight. Thanks to a low reported budget of $11 million, the heartfelt sports dramedy from Dwayne Johnson and Stephen Merchant is already on its way to becoming a modest hit with $8 million domestic.

Isn’t It Romantic dropped two spots to #5 this week, collecting just $7.5 million domestically in its post-Valentine’s weekend run. It’s now made $33.7 million in the U.S., surpassing its reported budget of $31 million.

Similarly, What Men Want dropped two spots to #6 with $5.2 million domestically. Now in its third weekend, the romantic comedy has made $49.6 million off of an even lower reported budget of $20 million. The rom-com isn’t the massive moneymaker it used to be, but clearly, there’s still an appetite for these films early in the year (You can read our review here).

Universal’s Happy Death Day 2U gained some theaters in its second week, but that wasn’t enough to keep the film from dropping two spots to #7. The slasher/sci-fi sequel only brought in $4.9 million domestically, but it’s still a bonafide hit with $42.5 million worldwide off of a low $9 million budget.

You guessed it. Cold Pursuit also dropped two spots to #8, making just $3.3 million in its third week. As we mentioned last week, this one might turn out to be a flop for Lionsgate with only $35.5 million worldwide off of an estimated budget of $60 million. The phrase “no such thing as bad press” doesn’t seem to apply this time. (Read our review here.)

Of course, The Upside also dropped two spots, now at #9. The STX film has enjoyed seven weeks on the Top 10, but it’s finally winding down with a worldwide total of $110.5 million off of a reported budget of $37.5 million. Not bad.

Last, we have a surprise for #10. Run the Race from Roadside Attractions pulled off a $2.2 million domestic take this weekend, despite debuting in only 853 theaters with mixed-to-negative reviews and a lack of any big names attached to the cast.

And They’re Out

Like last week, three films fell off the Top 10. Green Book (which just won Best Picture at the Academy Awards) dropped one spot to #11. Glass dropped five spots to #12. And The Prodigy dropped four spots to #13.

Check back with Atom Insider later this week as we preview all the new releases hitting theaters this Friday. And, as always, you can get tickets for these movies and more with Atom Tickets.