'How to Train Your Dragon' breathes fire at the box office

"How to Train Your Dragon" breathed a bit of box-office fire with a $43.3 million opening weekend and a No. 1 debut, The Associated Press reports.

Distributed by Paramount, the DreamWorks Animation adventure came in behind the studio's last cartoon comedy, "Monsters vs. Aliens," which opened with $59.3 million over the same weekend last year.

DreamWorks expects "How to Train Your Dragon" to have more staying power than "Monsters vs. Aliens" in subsequent weekends, though.

"How to Train Your Dragon," features the voices of Jay Baruchel and America Ferrera in the tale of a Viking youth who tames a fire-breathing reptile.