娱乐英语新闻:"How To Train Your Dragon" No. 1 at N. America box office again

LOS ANGELES, April 18 (Xinhua) -- "How to Train Your Dragon" once again rose to the top place of this weekend's box office owing to its 3-D spell and higher ticket prices, taking in a projected 20 million U.S. dollars the North America box office authority said Sunday.

The animated adventure film debuted in first place on March 28 before dropping to third place the past two weekends. The Paramount/DWA cartoon has amassed 158.6 million U.S. dollars during its amazing four-week box office stay.

Twelve of the first 16 box-office weekends in 2010 have been topped by 3-D films such as "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland," the authority said.

"Kick Ass," an action/comedy produced by Brad Pitt, finished in the number two slot with 19.8 million U.S. dollars The Lionsgate release based on the comic by Mark Millar actually outsold the cartoon Friday night, but was overtaken by the Dragon cartoon in the weekend matinees.

Poster of "How to Train Your Dragon"

Starring Aaron Johnson, teenager actress Chloe Moretz and Nicolas Cage, among others, the film follows a teenager trying to spice up his life by becoming a costumed vigilante. "Kick-Ass" generated a lot of buzz prior to its theatrical release, but the action-packed movie only scored an average of 2,480 U.S. dollars per theater.

However, like last weekend's flip-flop of the top two films from Sunday to Monday, it could become the number one film depending on how the final figures come in on Monday, with only 250,000 U.S. dollars separating it apart from the box office title. This could set yet another example of that rare circumstance of two films posting nearly identical numbers in the Sunday box- office derby.

The Tina Fey-Steve Carell comedy "Date Night," finished third with 17.3 million U.S. dollars against a minimal drop of just 31 percent for a total estimated take of 49.2 million U.S. dollars during its two-week box office run. The Fox film is now pushing the 50 million U.S. dollars mark and has obviously generated solid word-of-mouth with the date crowd.

Trailing behind in the fourth place with a slightly lower intake of box office receipts is Sony/Screnn Gems' "Death at a Funeral," a debut which garnered 17 million U.S. dollars.

Warner Bros.' three-week 3-D holdover "Clash of the Titans" dropped only 41 percent and took in a solid 15.8 million U.S. dollars this weekend after it had retained the No. 1 title for two week running. The remake has amassed a total of 133 million U.S. dollars thanks to a great release date and a strong marketing campaign that highlighted the availability of the film in 3-D format.