Dragon Still Tops US B-O by Default

APRIL 26, 2010 - With Hollywood dumping its weakest films into cineplexes, moviegoers mostly stayed away and the North American box office slumped to its lowest level of the year.

New releases The Back-up Plan and The Losers generated unimpressive results allowing the five-week old 3D cartoon How to Train Your Dragon to reclaim the number one spot, thanks to its continued durability. For the first time all year the top 10 films failed to gross at least US$90 million. Easing 23 percent to an estimated US$15 million, How to Train Your Dragon again saw the smallest dip among nationwide releases, though it was actually steeper than its previous two weekends.

Here is the Top 5 North American B-O estimates for April 23 - 25, 2010 weekend, in terms of rank, Movie name (studio), Weekend takings in USD, (Cumulative gross, USD) and week on chart, courtesy of Boxofficemojo.


1. How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks) $15.0 million ($178.0 million) 5

2. The Back-Up Plan (CBS) $12.2 million ($12.2 million) 1

3. Date Night (Fox) $10.6 million ($63.4 million) 3

4. The Losers (WB) $9.6 million ($9.6 million) 1

5. Kick-Ass (Lionsgate) $9.5 million ($34.8 million) 2