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It was a mixed bag at the box office this weekend.

Unsurprisingly, the How to Train Your Dragon live-action stayed at the top of the box office, although it still had a rough drop. 28 Years Later achieved a very solid #2 start, although it remains to be seen if it will have legs.

However, the weekend is also defined by some very bad news. That's the case with Pixar's Elio, which flopped this weekend and posted the studio's worst debut in all its 30 years of history.

The Top 10 earned a combined $120.6 million this weekend. That's down 18.6% from last year, when Inside Out 2 repeated at #1.

Staying at the top spot, Universal/DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon added $36.5 million this weekend. That's a very bad 57% drop, which is steeper than any of the animated films and quite poor for a family film. Despite its strong weekdays, it looks like the film might have had a ceiling regardless of its strong word of mouth.

Through 10 days, the film has earned $160 million, just slightly short of outgrossing The Hidden World's $160.7 million total. In the next few days, it will pass the second film ($177 million). Although this drop suggests that it might not be as leggy as its weekdays suggested.

In second place, Sony's 28 Years Later debuted with a pretty good $30 million in 3,444 theaters. That's easily the best debut in the franchise, tripling both Days ($10 million) and Weeks ($9.8 million). It's also the biggest debut for director Danny Boyle.

All in all, this is a pretty great debut. After all, the original franchise had a ceiling at the box office, but it has built an audience across home media, streaming and cable reruns. While there were projections that could go as high as $40 million, it's not really a bad start. This proves the franchise's popularity; if it wasn't, the film wouldn't have hit $30 million on its opening weekend.

Credit must go to Sony's incredible job in marketing the film. That teaser, accompanied with the 1903 poem "Boots" by Rudyard Kipling, was fantastic and even became the seccond biggest horror film trailer of all time back then (Final Destination: Bloodlines would later claim this title). Obviously, it wasn't gonna open as high as the It films, but that clearly showed interest. Cinephiles were also excited to see the return of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland as director and writer, respectively. And without many horror options right now, this was a perfect date. And they also delivered a fantastic film; it's currently sitting at a 89% on RT.

Despite its great debut, it has to be noted that the film was quite front-loaded. Thursday previews ($5.8 million) accounted for 19.3% of its weekend gross, which is very high, even for horror (for reference, Final Destination: Bloodlines' previews were just 10.6% of its weekend gross). It was followed by a steep 37% drop on Friday-to-Saturday, when horrors drop 25% at most. This suggests that the film might be more fan-driven than expected.

According to Sony, 61% of the audience was male. Horror usually leans young, but that's not the case here; only 25% of the audience was 25 and under. They gave it a solid "B" on CinemaScore, which is not bad for a horror film. There's some online chatter about the film's ending, which drew some polarized reactions. With M3GAN 2.0 and I Know What You Did Last Summer on the way, perhaps the film won't hold very well. But it should still have enough gas to hit $75 million domestically. And now it's all up to The Bone Temple to keep this winning streak in January.

Debuting in third place, Disney/Pixar's Elio flopped with a very terrible $20.8 million in 3,750 theaters. This is the absolute worst debut in Pixar's history, far below both Elemental and the original Toy Story (both at $29 million). And this is all unadjusted, which makes it even worse!

The road to Elio was always going to be tricky. In the past few years, there have been a lot of sci-fi animated films that failed to find success at the box office: Lightyear, Strange World and Transformers One. It doesn't help when it's a non-IP film, as those films have been struggling to gain traction in the post-COVID climate (Sinners is a big exception, not the rule). And with a $150 million, it's safe to deem this as a flop.

What didn't help Elio was its delays. This film was supposed to come out in March 2024, but it was delayed to this current date. And in the full year, the film's concept was retooled, which is why you see a big difference from the original teaser to the most recent trailers. But by delaying the film, perhaps the audience lost interest in the film. If they were gonna spend money at theaters, they probably would go for a more familiar IP. In this case, releasing it the week after How to Train Your Dragon was a death sentence. And the marketing just wasn't really efficient; it couldn't overcome the "been there, done that" feeling from other films. Even with some good reviews (83% on RT), it simply failed to grab audiences.

According to Disney, 59% of the audience was male. In an interesting stat, 39% of the audience was 12 and under, a skew far younger than usual for Pixar (last year, Inside Out had 20% at 12 and under).

Okay, so it's a bad debut. But not everything is hopeless. Audiences gave Elio a strong "A" on CinemaScore, which could bode well for legs. Elemental opened with a poor $29 million, but strong word of mouth allowed it to reach $154 million domestically. It remains to be seen if Elio can have strong legs; the only animated competition is Smurfs in mid July. But even if it had Elemental's legs, that would still be just $108 million domestically. Barring a miracle, Elio is pretty much guaranteed to become Pixar's lowest grossing film at the domestic box office (Onward technically made $60 million, but it had to close early due to COVID shutdowns, so it doesn't really count). What will Pixar do now?

After its rough drops for the past weeks, Lilo & Stitch appears to be stabilizing. It dipped 38%, adding $9.7 million. That takes its domestic total to $386.7 million, and it's on course to finish with around $415 million domestically.

In fifth place, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning dipped 39% and grossed $6.4 million. With $178.2 million domestically, it has surpassed the domestic lifetime of Dead Reckoning ($172 million). It will finish with over $190 million, but the $200 million dream is dead.

In sixth place, A24's Materialists added $5.8 million this weekend. That's a 49% drop, which is quite solid, considering its weak "B–" on CinemaScore suggested it could face some problems. Through 10 days, the film has amassed $23.2 million, and it should close with almost $35 million domestically.

Karate Kid: Legends is on its way out of theaters. It dropped 55%, earning just $2.3 million. The film has earned a disappointing $49.3 million so far.

Ballerina is also nearing the end of its run in theaters. It dropped 54% this weekend, earning $4.5 million. The film has made $51 million, and it's set to become the least attended film in the series.

In ninth place, Final Destination: Bloodlines dropped 53%, adding $1.8 million. The film has earned $134.8 million so far.

Rounding out the Top 10 was the Indian film Kuberaa, which managed to earn $1.7 million in 500 theaters.

It doesn't look like Neon's The Life of Chuck will last much more longer in theaters, not only after its weak debut but also its weak second weekend drop. The film dropped a poor 57%, earning just $1 million. Through 10 days in wide release, the film has made just $4.6 million domestically. If you want to check this film out, you better do it as soon as possible, cause it's about to disappear.

OVERSEAS

How to Train Your Dragon led the overseas box office with $53.6 million, for a $357.7 million worldwide total. The film's best markets are Mexico ($24.5M), China ($23.2M), UK ($16.8M), Brazil ($12.6M) and Korea ($9.6M). Easily set for over $600 million worldwide.

28 Years Later also had a good start outside America. It earned $30 million overseas for a $60 million worldwide debut. It had pretty good debuts in the UK ($6.4M) and Mexico ($2.7M), followed by more modest starts in Australia ($1.7M), Korea ($1.5M), Germany ($1.3M), France ($1.3M) and Spain ($1.2M). Let's see how it holds in the coming weeks.

Lilo & Stitch added $19.7 million overseas, for a $910 million worldwide total. Its best markets are Mexico ($64.2M), UK ($46.3M), France ($37.1M), Brazil ($34.5M) and Germany ($29M).

You thought the domestic numbers for Elio were depressing? Wait till you see the worldwide numbers. It debuted with an abysmal $14 million overseas, for a poor $34.8 million worldwide debut. It had very weak debuts in South Korea ($1.8M), Mexico ($1.4M), France ($1.3M), UK ($1.2M) and Italy ($800K). In most of these markets, it lost to 28 Years Later and posted the worst Pixar debut as well. There's still a few markets left, but this is still a very horrible way to kick off its run. The film needs over $350 million just to recoup its investment, which means it must do over 10 times this weekend's performance to get there. Unless a miracle happens, it's a flop.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning added $12.8 million overseas, taking its worldwide total to $540.7 million. The best markets are China ($60.6M), UK ($32.9M), Japan ($30.2M), Korea ($22.5M) and France ($21.8M).

With $49.7 million overseas, Ballerina has now crossed $100 million. But that's still nowhere close to being considered a remotely passable number.

FILMS THAT ENDED THEIR RUN THIS WEEK

None.

THIS WEEKEND

We've got two wide releases, but one is clearly going for the #1 finish.

And that's Warner Bros./Apple's F1, which stars Brad Pitt as a F1 driver who comes out of retirement to mentor a new prodigy. Formula One is incredibly popular in Europe, and its popularity has also picked up some steam in America thanks to the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive. Apple hasn't had much luck with their theatrical releases so far, and currently, F1 is their only theatrical project lined up (Highest 2 Lowest technically is going into theaters but it's a 2-week limited release, so it hardly counts). The project cost $200 million (not the $300 million figure everyone talked about months ago) and both Apple and WB have pulled a very extensive marketing campaign. Surely the foreign markets will be strong, but America also needs to show up. Will this be Apple's first hit at the box office?

The other release is Universal/Blumhouse's M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to the 2023 phenomenon. Instead of taking the similar route that horror sequels have pulled (the exact same premise), the sequel chose to go bonkers instead. Instead of doing another "AI doll who kills people", the film is going the full "AI doll vs. AI doll" angle and accepting how stupid and ridiculous this situation is. But is that an advantage or will it be its biggest weakness?

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