How to Train Your Dragon Just Beat One of the Best Comic Book Movies Ever

How to Train Your Dragon, which is a near shot-for-shot live action remake of the animated film, was released into theaters back in June. The film quickly proved to be a success for Universal Picture, with a sequel announced before it premiered. Theoriginal animated movie, released in 2010, earned a near perfect Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a 99% Fresh score. It went on to earn $494.87 million worldwide on a reported $165 million budget. The live action movie, however, only earned a 77% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but has already surpassed the animated movie’s entire haul and did so with a reported smaller budget, the slightly lower $150 million.

The live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie has been doing well at the box office, and the new film just took down one of the best comic book movies from the ’90s. The live action iteration on How to Train Your Dragon has already earned $580.91 million at the worldwide box office, with $250.7 million of that coming from the domestic box office alone. That’s enough for the movie to surpass a classic comic book movie from the ’90s, Men in Black. The Will Smith-led movie took in $250.69 million domestically, just under How to Train Your Dragon‘s current domestic total. More importantly, though, How to Train Your Dragon managed to achieve this feat after only being in theaters for a little over a month.

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The box office haul for How to Train Your Dragon has started to slow, averaging between $1.2 million and $3.1 million a day over the past two weeks. That said, there are some other major box office heavy hitters on the all-time domestic box office list that it’s close to passing, including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Night at the Museum, and even Tim Burton’s Batman.

Though not as notable as other titles, Sony’s Men in Black was originally an adaptation of the comic book series The Men in Black by writer Lowell Cunningham and artist Sandy Carruthers. The comic book series was initially published by Aircel Comics, before the publisher was bought out by Malibu Comics, with Marvel Comics later acquiring Malibu. The very first movie, Men in Black, was made for just $90 million, but proved to be a success for Sony after earning $589.39 million worldwide, ultimately spawning a franchise for the studio. Men in Black 2 followed in 2002, with the third installment arriving a decade later in 2012. Sony would try to reboot the franchise with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson in 2019’s Men in Black: International, but the film failed to capture audiences, only taking in $253.89 million total on a $110 million budget.

The live action iteration of How to Train Your Dragon hails from director Dean DeBlois and stars Mason Thames as Hiccup, Nico Parker as Astrid, Gerard Butler as Stoick, Nick Frost as Gobber, Gabriel Howell as Snotlout, Julian Dennison as Fishlegs, Bronwyn James as Ruffnut, Harry Trevaldwyn as Tuffnut, Murray McArthur as Hoark, and Peter Serafinowicz as Spitelout. The live action film is based on the Dreamworks Animation animated film franchise, which is very loosely based on the book series of the same name by Cressida Cowell.

The film focuses on a young Viking named Hiccup (Thames), who is known to be inventive, and Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, who form a friendship as an ancient threat proves endangering to both Vikings and dragons on the Isle of Berk. Both Hiccup and Toothless will soon find that they are the key to ensuring both species forge a new future together. The movie is now playing exclusively in movie theaters, while the animated films are available to stream on Hulu and Max.