Stitch’s Reign Is Finally Over… | Week 23, 2025
How To Train Your Dragon, Materialists, and More
The live-action How To Train Your Dragon adaptation finally dethroned Lilo & Stitch’s three week streak at #1, opening to an excellent $197,845,000 international haul. Universal spent $150 million on this one, more than the relatively thrifty Lilo & Stitch but the same as A Minecraft Movie. It’s worth mentioning that this is significantly lower than what Disney tends to spend on these types of movies.
While this won’t reach the box office highs of 2025’s big family hits (My hunch is $600-$700m), any drafter is looking at a $200m+ profit, and I’m probably low-balling that figure.
A24’s Materialists opened to an unexpectedly strong $15,500,423 globally. The word of mouth on this seems to be mixed given it’s apparently much more of a drama than a rom-com, but this could play out as a “movie for adults” and hang around over the summer. The legs will be interesting on this one given the $20 million budget, but this could end up being a small wash in Fantasy Box Office terms (But likely a much bigger hit in the real world when you factor in pre-sales, etc.).
Neon’s The Life Of Chuck also expanded further this week and is sitting at a $2,985,962 gross, but it has no stated budget. Anyway, it doesn’t really look like this one is breaking out. Perhaps something like this would have been a stronger winter release than a summer release.
The Holdovers
Lilo & Stitch is facing a pretty similar box office trajectory to A Minecraft Movie, where it isn’t quite hitting the numbers it needs to hit $1 billion, but it will be awfully close. Either way, this will push drafters into frontrunner territory or undo a Snow White sized flop.
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning was doomed by its $400 million budget from Day 1, and while it did pass the $500m mark (…And is on its way to $600m), this will still be a significant loss for any drafters (Or anyone who has it on their bomb slate).
Karate Kid: Legends is on track to be a wash for any drafters. It’s currently at just under $90 million (With a $112.5m breakeven), and it will either be just under or over. Unless your league is neck and neck, this will barely make a dent.
Bring Her Back is turning a nice little profit with a $20,121,572 haul on a $4.5 million budget. The interesting part here is that the broader international release happens in late July/early August, meaning you might have some extra profit rolling in as the summer wraps up.
Next Weekend
Next week sees the release of two major movies. Danny Boyle returns to the franchise that rebirthed the zombie genre as a whole with the eagerly awaited 28 Years Later, and we will find out if Pixar has a post-Inside Out 2 winning streak ahead of them with Elio.