How to Train Your Dragon, the most-recent 3-D outing from DreamWorks Animation, soared to the top of the box office charts this weekend, grossing $43.3 million.
The film handily beat out its top – competitor, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, which grossed $17.3 million for the weekend. The weekend’s other major release, Hot Tub Time Machine, came in third place with $13.6 million.
Waking Sleeping Beauty, the documentary about the revival of animated features at Walt Disney Studios in the 1980s and 1990s, grossed an estimated $33,100 on five screens in four cities for its debut weekend.
Dragon met expectations for its opening weekend, but fell short of the mark set one year ago by the $59 million opening of DreamWorks’ Monsters vs. Aliens. Dragon‘s gross also comes with the caveat of higher ticket prices for 3-D films. But word of mouth on the film is strong, which could give the film the kind of legs that Monsters vs. Aliens lacked.
Dragon grossed about $42 million overseas, giving it a total weekend gross of $85.6 million.
Also still in release are Avatar, which added $2 million to bring its record-setting domestic total to $740 million; and Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, which took in $260,000 to bring its domestic haul to $219 million.
