Box office: Final How to Train Your Dragon soars toward franchise best with $55.5M

The Hidden World, DreamWorks' third and final installment to its wildly popular How to Train Your Dragon franchise, is flying toward great heights with a $55.5 million during its first weekend at the box office. Along with early Fandango screenings, the total stands at $58 million. 

This is the best opening for any entry in the animated series. When it comes to foreign markets (the movie began to open in other countries last month), the threequel has almost taken in $300 million.

For comparison, the first movie made just over $43 million during its first weekend in 2010 while the sequel made a little over $49 million four years later. In terms of international sales, the global ticket sales from the first two installments equal more than $1 billion, a figure that will only grow with The Hidden World.

Written and directed by the maker of the last two films, Dean DeBlois, the trilogy capper based on Cressida Cowell's kids' books of the name, finds Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and Toothless facing off against the dreaded dragon hunter, Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham).

The antagonist is interested in finding the Hidden World, a place where dragons of all kinds live in peace and harmony, prompting Hiccup, and Astrid (America Ferrera), and the rest of Berk to get there first. There's also the plot point of Toothless finding love after discovering a female and white-scaled Night Fury, which Astrid dubs a "Light Fury."

Jonah Hill (Snotlout), Cate Blanchett (Valka), Gerard Butler (Stoick), Craig Ferguson (Gobber), Kristen Wiig (Ruffnut), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Fishlegs), and even Game of Thrones' Kit Harington (Eret) round out the all-star voice cast.

Now in its second week in theaters, Alita: Battle Angel has been knocked down to the No. 2 spot with $12 million, a 60% drop. Domestically, the James Cameron-produced, Robert Rodriguez-directed project has nabbed $60 million.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part should take the third spot with $10 million during its third week at the box office. That will bring the animated sequel's domestic total up to $84 million and its global total up to $117 million.

Isn't It Romantic is on track for the fourth spot with $7.5 million.

Credit: 20th Century Fox & Warner Bros. Pictures

(via The Hollywood Reporter, Variety & Box Office Mojo)