Here's some encouraging news (for once) from the US box-office. When the smashing How to Train Your Dragonwas released earlier this year, it received rave reviews from both snooty critics in monocles and populist reviewers in stupid jumpers. Indeed, few computer-animations from outside the Pixar stable have been quite so enthusiastically raved about.
Yet, though Dragonhas been a hit, it did not open quite so well as hoped. The figures are way behind those for last year's so-so Monsters vs Aliensand, in a straight fight, the useless Clash of the Titanspummelled its magical ass.
Well, it seems like word of mouth does matter. Last weekend the film managed to claw its way to the top of the charts in – most unusual this – its fifth week of release.
Noting the Dragon's slow-burn towards the summit, the Los Angeles Times, whose entertainment staff lives for these statistics, declared it the "animation world's My Big Fat Greek Wedding".
The cartoon has now caught up with Titansin the US but – because we're all idiots – remains someway behind the vacuous epic in the echoing wasteland known as Rest of the World.
Elsewhere in record- breaking news, James Cameron's Avatarsurprised absolutely nobody by rapidly becoming the fastest-selling DVD ever in the US, shifting 6.7 million units, each one in boring old 2-D.
