Actually, HTTYD2 had very ordinary staying power at the domestic box office, unlike the original movie, and ended up near the low end of projections that were made based on its opening weekend gross. What happened was its overseas performance was significantly stronger, which fortunately made up for this and then some, but it doesn’t change the fact that the movie underperformed in its home market (which is still the largest box office market in the world). $177 million domestic may seem like a lot, but it is widely viewed as a disappointment because it is $40 million less than the amount the original movie grossed, and is generally less than any studio would want from a movie with a production budget of $145 million.

Remember that studios only get about half of the gross and typically have to spend in the vicinity of an additional $100 million for worldwide marketing and other overhead expenses–for a movie like this the break-even point would be about $490 million (wow!), with about half of the rest representing the profit from theatrical revenue. It’s a tough business to be in if you’re almost solely dependent on “tent pole” movies like this, which is why DreamWorks Animation is in trouble–too many of their movies have fallen under the break-even point, of late.

Having said all of that, overall HTTYD2 was very successful, thanks largely to foreign countries, and was something DWA really needed, but not all that they needed, as they had hoped it would be out loud (a billion-dollar grosser would have been). High expectations are why HTTYD2 was considered a “disappointment” but then again shouldn’t a sequel to a very good movie that had great word of mouth and very strong legs at the box office have performed better (domestically)? It’s still a bit of a mystery as to why it didn’t, but in any case no, actually it did not recover at the domestic box office–only overseas and worldwide overall.

Not everyone likes waiting. That’s why the short-term results are often given a lot of weight.

Yes, long-term success is the most important. But the site is going to be more consistent in providing a weekend box office recap, which by its nature focuses on short-term results (in addition to encapsulating long-term results once a film has been in theaters long enough).

It just so happens that this week Strange Magic and Paddington had only been released in the US for a few weeks, so the nature of these analyses are short-term.