Dog Man retains the top spot at the box office, but new releases Heart Eyes and Love Hurts struggle to make an impact, with both films falling short of expectations.

In a surprisingly quiet winter weekend at the box office, Dog Man, DreamWorks Animation’s animated adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s popular graphic novel series, managed to hold onto its position as the number one movie in theaters, despite a significant drop in its second weekend.

The movie collected an estimated $13.7 million in ticket sales, marking a 62% decrease from its opening weekend, but still surpassing two new releases, Love Hurts and Heart Eyes, which struggled to capture audiences’ attention.

The success of Dog Man isn’t without its challenges. Despite its dominance at the box office, the film’s steep drop in earnings raised questions about its staying power, especially considering its hefty production budget of $40 million.

However, with a total of $54.1 million in domestic earnings over two weeks, Dog Man remains a financial success for DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures.

The film, aimed at younger audiences, is still pulling in numbers, but it’s clear that the drop-off suggests it may not have the longevity the studio hoped for.

Meanwhile, the romantic horror comedy Heart Eyes, released by Spyglass Media Group and Sony, took the second spot, earning $8.5 million from 3,102 locations.

While the film has garnered generally positive reviews, audiences didn’t seem to embrace the mix of romance and horror as much as critics did.

The film, which was made for $18 million, earned a “B-” from CinemaScore audiences, which was below expectations for a genre mashup that could have attracted a wider audience.

Directed by Josh Ruben, Heart Eyes stars Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding and promises a fresh take on love and fear, but in the end, it wasn’t enough to make a major impact at the box office.

In the midst of these releases, Love Hurts, starring Ke Huy Quan in his first major film role since his Oscar-winning turn in Everything Everywhere All at Once, failed to attract substantial box office attention.

The action-comedy, about a mild-mannered realtor with a dangerous past, debuted with a meager $5.8 million from 3,055 theaters.

While the film boasts a fun premise and a talented cast that includes Ariana DeBose, audiences seemed unimpressed, giving the movie a lackluster “C+” CinemaScore.

Produced for $18 million, the film struggled to gain any significant traction, especially in comparison to other action-comedies in the genre.

As a whole, the weekend’s box office results showed a pattern of mixed reception and lower-than-expected earnings, reflecting a broader trend in recent years: Super Bowl weekend tends to be a slow period for Hollywood, with studios holding off on major releases in favor of pitching trailers to the millions of viewers watching the big game.

Hollywood’s focus on the Super Bowl audience means that the weekend is often more about generating future buzz than about securing immediate box office success.

Looking ahead, next weekend promises to be far more competitive. The release of Marvel’s highly anticipated Captain America: Brave New World is expected to take the spotlight, alongside Sony’s Paddington in Peru, both of which have generated significant buzz in the run-up to their debuts.

These two films are poised to dominate the box office and may shift the focus away from the relatively lackluster offerings of the current weekend.

In the grand scheme of things, Dog Man remains a solid performer, but Love Hurts and Heart Eyes demonstrate the challenges that even big-name talent and interesting premises can face when audiences aren’t fully sold on the product.

The financial success of these films remains to be seen, but with the upcoming releases next week, it’s clear that Hollywood is gearing up for a much more explosive weekend at the box office.

With a promising lineup of films on the horizon, Dog Man‘s reign as the top film may be short-lived, but its success is still a notable achievement in the quieter months of the moviegoing season.

As the industry braces for the release of major blockbusters, it remains to be seen which films will manage to capture the audience’s imagination and stay at the top for more than just a weekend.

Final domestic box office figures will be released Monday, but for now, the weekend rankings stand as follows: Dog Man leads with $13.7 million, followed by Heart Eyes at $8.5 million, Love Hurts at $5.8 million, Mufasa: The Lion King at $3.9 million, and Companion and One of Them Days each bringing in $3 million.

Other notable films on the list include Becoming Led Zeppelin and Flight Risk, both of which earned $2.6 million, and Sonic the Hedgehog, with $1.8 million. The chart rounds out with Moana 3, which took in $1.5 million.

Dog Man is a 2025 American animated action comedy film based on Dav Pilkey’s children’s graphic novel series Dog Man.

Produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures, it is a spin-off and story within a story of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) and the second film in the Captain Underpants franchise.

The film was written and directed by Peter Hastings, and stars the voices of Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Poppy Liu, Stephen Root, Billy Boyd, and Ricky Gervais, with Hastings providing vocal effects for the titular character.

DreamWorks Animation announced a film adaptation of Dog Man in December 2020, with Hastings set to direct after his experience with Pilkey’s works from The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants (2018–20).

Karen Foster joined as a producer in January 2024, and the cast was announced that September.

Dog Man premiered at the 2025 edition of the Festival