Filipinos Have Spoken (June 18–22, 2025): Dragons are still cool, aliens not so much. Universal Pictures’ How to Train Your Dragon leads the Philippine box office for another week, while Disney and Pixar’s new original Elio is off to an unfortunate start.
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| (C) Disney |
Dragon scored another $828K (₱47 million) in the country, just down 48 percent from last week. This is a strong second week performance for the adaptation which is a few points below the drop of The Hidden World (42 percent) back in 2019. After two weeks, it has now collected $2,698,370 (₱153 million).
The bigger box office story this week, however, belongs to Elio. The Pixar original opened to an estimated $204K (₱11.6 million), less than half of what Elemental, Pixar’s most recent original, debuted with in 2023 ($554K), and a far cry from last year’s juggernaut Inside Out 2 ($6.49 million). It also opened below Lightyear ($399K), another sci-fi-themed Pixar film. In a small relief, Elio avoided being the studio’s lowest Philippine opening; that title still belongs to Turning Red, which earned just $69K in 2022 when cinemas were only beginning to reopen.
What happened here? It's harder to sell an original nowadays, let alone a sci-fi film. It doesn't help either that How To Train Your Dragon just opened last week and Lilo & Stitch has been posting solid drops week-to-week. Could it have benefitted from a different release date? Maybe. However, despite how good the reviews are, the film arguably just didn't seem appealing - from the title to the marketing angle. Since the pandemic, the Pixar brand alone has also not been enough to draw a huge crowd on opening week. Pixar's next original, Hoppers, opens on March 2026.
Lilo & Stitch fell 79 percent this week, grossing $53K (est. ₱3 million). In five weeks, the live action adaptation has now grossed $4,291,526 (est. ₱244 million) in the country. Dangerous Animals, from Pioneer, opened this week to $15K (est. ₱900K).
