How to Train Your Dragon 2 may be one of the best summer blockbusters of the year, but it’s not the most successful. Somehow a long-awaited fantasy epic for all ages got its ass handed to it – monetarily speaking, anyway – by 22 Jump Street… the OTHER long-awaited sequel that got released last weekend. How to Train Your Dragon 2‘s $50 million take is nothing to sneeze at but it’s bound to be a disappointment to Dreamworks, which has been heavily hyping the franchise as the next big thing.
Related: How to Train Your Dragon 2 Review:
Vermithrax Overwhelmingly Positive
So what have we learned from the film’s success and critical acclaim? Let’s take a look…
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
How to Train Your Dragon 2: 5 Things We've Learned
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This Franchise is the Real Deal...
How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the latest in an increasingly impressive line of sequels that not only hold up to the original, but expand upon it and stand on their own as a fantastic piece of entertainment. CraveOnline raved about it, and we weren't alone: it's sitting pretty with a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yes, the How to Train Your Dragon franchise is indeed the "real" deal. Unfortunately it's...
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...Just Not a BIG Deal.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 opened with a respectable but not spectacular $50 million box office take. That's $7 million more than the first film made on its opening weekend. But 22 Jump Street won the weekend with $60 million, after the original film opening to a comparatively measly $36 million. A big, epic fantasy for all ages was trounced by an R-rated comedy. 22 Jump Street is a very big deal indeed, and although How to Train Your Dragon 2 will no doubt make money (especially on home video), it's just not the big story of the weekend.
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Dean DeBlois Has Got the Goods...
The first How to Train Your Dragon was directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, but Sanders left the sequel to direct The Croods instead. That movie was alright, we suppose, but How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a triumph that proves Dean DeBlois is a talent to be reckoned with in the future.
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...But Phil Lord and Chris Miller Are New Hollywood Royalty.
Four films under their belts and each of them turning out to be unexpected smash hits, 22 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are now sitting pretty at the top of every Hollywood studio's wish list. It seems - for now at least - like they can do no wrong, and with The LEGO Movie and 22 Jump Street owning the box office in the same calendar year, it seems unlikely that this assumption will be challenged anytime soon.
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We Will NEVER Find Out Why These Vikings Are Scottish.
Again, we love these movies as much as anybody, but the adult Vikings in the film are Scottish, and their kids are American, and we have no idea why. And we probably never will. Perhaps some mysteries are best left unsolved.
