‘How to Train Your Dragon’: Which film made the most money? | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Building on the success of its animated predecessors, a live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon hit theaters nationwide on June 13, 2025. Following the success of Lilo and Stitch — another popular animated series that Disney turned into a live-action movie — over Memorial Day weekend, expectations are high for How to Train Your Dragon.

How to Train Your Dragon draws from the same material as the 2010 original film, but the live-action version is longer by almost half an hour, at two hours and five minutes. The movie follows its protagonist, a teenager named Hiccup, as he befriends an injured dragon he names Toothless. The two then work together to change how dragons are viewed among Hiccup’s fellow Vikings, particularly his father, Stoick, who is the chief of the village.

💵💰Don’t miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet’s free daily newsletter 💰💵

As viewers fill cinema seats over the film’s opening weekend, here’s how much each film from the original animated film trilogy has made at the box office.

Dean DeBlois is director of all of the How to Train Your Dragon movies. The animated trilogy of How to Train Your Dragon made more than $2.2 billion, in 2025 inflation-adjusted dollars.

Gilbert Flores/Getty Images

Children’s franchises make for box-office blowouts

Children’s and young adult franchises, even when stretched over decades, seem to be more than able to retain and grow audiences, mixing novelty with nostalgia to attract multiple generations to the cinema and blowing budgets away with massive box office revenue in the process.

The Lilo and Stitch live-action remake, for example — produced on a $100 million budget — has made more than $700 million in the three weeks since its Memorial Day weekend debut, and How to Train Your Dragon could be the next live action remake to vastly exceed its production budget in terms of box office revenue.

Appeal to a young audience has been key to many enduring film franchises, including The Karate Kid series, the first installment of which was released in 1984. The franchise’s sixth film, Karate Kid: Legends, was released at the end of May 2025, and has so far reeled in over $75 million on a $45 million budget — a success, but a much more moderate one.

People who first watched the original How to Train Your Dragon film in the theaters in 2010 are now 15 years older, and some may bring their children with them to enjoy the live-action remake with the next generation.

Will it be a smashing success like the live-action Lilo and Stitch, or will it just make a moderate profit like Karate Kid: Legends?

What is the budget for How to Train Your Dragon?

The estimated budget for the new How to Train Your Dragon was $150 million, which is on par with the budget of each of the previous films at the time of their releases.

Which companies are behind the release of How to Train Your Dragon?

DreamWorks Animation, the same studio behind the production of the original trilogy of movies produced the new live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. Distribution of the film, though, is handled by Universal Pictures, a departure from Paramount Pictures, which distributed the trilogy.

More on Hollywood and money:

Which How to Train Your Dragon voice actors appear in the new live-action film?

Many of the actors behind the voices of the main characters in the original How to Train Your Dragon series are much older than the teenage characters they represent, so many have been recast in the live-action remake.

One main actor to return from the original film, though, is Gerard Butler, who plays Stoick.

Gerard Butler returns in the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon as Stoick, father of Hiccup and chief of their Viking village.

Direct Group Saudi Arabia/Getty Images

Every How to Train Your Dragon film by revenue and budget

Each of the How to Train Your Dragon movies in the trilogy has made more than $600 million, in inflation-adjusted 2025 dollars. The three films have made a combined total of $2.2 billion.

Here’s how each How to Train Your Dragon film has performed at the box office based on data compiled by Box Office Mojo, which tracks movie revenue at theaters. Box office revenues in parentheses are adjusted for inflation.

Jay Baruchel voiced Hiccup in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy.

Alberto E&period; Rodriguez/Getty Images

How to Train Your Dragon

Global box office gross receipts: $494 million ($726 million in 2025 dollars)
Budget: $165 million
Release Date: March 18, 2010

The first sequel to How to Train Your Dragon grossed more than the 2010 original.

Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Global box office gross receipts: $621 million ($836 million in 2025 dollars)
Budget: $145 million
Release Date: June 5, 2014

The third movie of the trilogy had the smallest budget and had the smallest box-office receipts.

LISA O’CONNOR/Getty Images

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Global box office gross receipts: $539 million ($673 million in 2025 dollars)
Budget: $129 million
Release Date: January 3, 2019

How to Train Your Dragon (live-action remake)

Global box office gross receipts: ?
Budget: $150 million
Release Date: June 13, 2025