How much money did How do you train your dragon The Hidden World?

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has passed $500M globally. Hiccup and Toothless rode across the half-a-billion threshold with this weekend’s figures included. Domestically, the Dean DeBlois-directed charmer has grossed $152.97M while the international box office stands at $348.9M through Sunday. The worldwide total on the adventure epic is $501.9M to date, taking the three films in the series combined to just over $1.6B.

The Viking and the Night Fury embarked on a smartly staggered offshore release journey beginning early to swoop in on Australia just after the New Year and take advantage of summer season play there. They continued popping up in overseas markets through several weeks ahead of domestic, tying in to summer holidays in South America, and the Lunar New Year holiday in South Korea and South East Asia. European early dates were timed to half-term school breaks.

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Ultimately, The Hidden World bowed at No. 1 in 54 markets, scoring the biggest debut of the franchise in 53. The Top 5 markets are China ($54.2M), Russia ($27.5M), France ($25M), the UK ($25M) and Mexico ($21M). Japan is still to release on December 20.

Internationally, HTTYD3 scored the biggest opening for a DWA title in 11 markets including Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Indonesia, Turkey and Malaysia. It was also the top animated opening of all time in Ukraine, Vietnam and Egypt; and is the highest-grossing film in the series in 39 markets including majors Brazil, France, Mexico and Russia.

The North American debut in late February was $55M for the best of the trio with the residents of Berk topping the charts for two consecutive weekends.

  Globally, Hidden World, with an estimated production cost of $129M, is the second-highest-grossing Hollywood film of 2019 to date. It’s also the first title under DWA’s new home at Uni and is Uni’s second animated title to hit the $500M milestone in the past few months following the late 2018 release of Illumination’s The Grinch.

  Universal’s next animated offering is also from Illumination as The Secret Life Of Pets 2, the sequel to 2016’s $875M worldwide hit, begins wagging its tail overseas in late May.

When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn’t about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysterious end of the equation, Deadline is repeating our Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament for 2019, using data culled by seasoned and trusted sources.

THE FILM

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Universal/DreamWorks Animation

The irony in the wake of DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour heading into homes last weekend due to COVID-19 (where it made an estimated $40M-$50M stateside) is that Universal’s most profitable movie from last year was How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, even though Fast & Furious spin-off Hobbs & Shaw grossed more worldwide at $759M, 45% higher than Dragon 3. The threequel’s success here underscores the financial upside of a theatrical release and its downstream window revenues. Questions surround Universal’s novel PVOD Trolls World Tour release: Without the full power of its theatrical window, will that diminish future monies in other windows? After How to Train Your Dragon 2 hit a franchise high at the global box office with $621.5M, a finale to the Dean DeBlois’ animation series, adapted from Cressida Cowell’s books, was always in the cards. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World was also an important title to kick off DreamWorks Animation 2.0 following Universal’s $3.8 billion purchase of the studio previously run by Jeffrey Katzenberg. Universal gave the threequel a big marketing push via its vertical-integrated Symphony program by publicizing Dragon 3 throughout its parks, TV shows, Xfinity cable systems and channels (only a handful of releases on the studio’s slate receive that type of platinum promotion). There was also a heavy play toward Hispanic families, who repped close to a quarter of the audience, and drove How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World to the highest domestic opening in the franchise of $55M over the Feb. 22-24 weekend. All in Hidden World took the Dragon franchise to $1.6 billion at the WW box office.

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THE BOX SCORE

Here are the costs and revenues as our experts see them:

THE BOTTOM LINE

As opposed to the lofty-priced animation features during the Katzenberg DreamWorks era; Dragon 2 costing an estimated $145M, and the original 2010 version costing $165M before P&A, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World was, by far, the cheapest at $129M. No surprise, as Illumination’s Chris Meledandri, who was given grand oversight of DreamWorks Animation 2.0, is known for making animated pics at a budget —even the studio’s The Secret Life of Pets 2 turned a profit. Total revenues including theatrical, global home entertainment, and TV were $448M. Subtract total global costs of $318M, and Universal walks away with $130M.

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