"How To Train Your Dragon" tops N America box office with 3D spell

LOS ANGELES, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Another dragon-themed animated film "How To Train Your Dragon" rocketed to the top of the weekend box office race with a projected 43.3 million U.S. dollars in sales, the North America box office authority said Sunday.

"How to Train Your Dragon" poster

The Dreamworks Animation release tells how a hapless young Viking who aspires to hunt dragons becomes the unlikely owner of a young dragon himself, and learns there may be more to the creatures than he assumed. Debuting on Friday on over 7,000 screens at 4,055 sites includes 2,178 3-D venues (including 185 IMAX sites), the Dreamworks Animation's latest work took in 12.2 million dollars in ticket receipts alone.

The awesome performance is largely ascribed to the studio's signature promotion which is characterized by omnipresent advertising campaigns as well as special ads interwoven throughout the Winter Olympics.

About one fourth of the movie houses showing are using 3-D technology, and a 3-D film has topped the box-office chart for nine out of the 13 weekends of 2010 so far, authorities said.

Ranking in second place is Disney's "Alice In Wonderland" remake, which fetched an estimated 17.3 million dollars in ticket sales. That brings its four-week running total to 293.1 million dollars.

"Hot Tub Time Machine" opened in third place, with an estimated 13.7 million dollars in weekend estimated sales for MGM. A ribald fantasy-comedy starring John Cusack, it stands out with its title and flashback to the still hip 1980s decade. It relates four guy friends who are bored with their adult lives travel back to their respective 80s heydays thanks to a time-bending hot tub.