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"Well, They Can Watch The Animated Movie": How To Train Your Dragon Director Responds To Live-Action Detractors As New Trailer Releases
Dean DeBlois breaks down his new HTTYD.
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Dean DeBlois is making the leap to live-action with his new How to Train Your Dragon adaptation, but some detractors have questioned the need for a new version of the beloved film. Hitting the big screen in 2010, How to Train Your Dragon quickly became a major hit for DreamWorks.
How to Train Your DragonThe film spawned a trilogy of movies, all of which DeBlois has directed either alongside Chris Sanders or on his own. Now, with Hiccup and Toothless making the move to live-action in 2025's How to Train Your Dragon, DeBlois will make his directorial debut with the new take on their original adventure.
It's a daunting task, but one that DeBlois feels uniquely prepared for given his previous experience with the series and his knowledge of what the film series means to generations of How to Train Your Dragon fans.
During a preview event for How to Train Your Dragon, members of the media (including Screen Rant) got the chance to speak with DeBlois about making the transition from animation to live-action, the biggest additions the new films make to the original story, and the importance of getting the story right in this new form.
Bringing How To Train Your Dragon To Live-Action"I think there's room to kind of play with it a little bit and expand it and enrich it."Ever since it was announced, the live-action How to Train Your Dragons adaptation has faced scrutiny from parts of the fan-base. What has been your reaction to seeing how people have responded to the live-action film?
It's been slowly winning people over. There are always going to be people who are like "I'm going to boycott this!" Well, they can watch the animated movie. But I also think that we are making it with a lot of love and a lot of respect for what the animated movies are, not to replace the animated ones.
I'm proud of those films. But I think there's room to expand it and enrich it. We can enrich some of those relationships in the way that live actors can do when you put a camera on them.
Astrid Benefits From The Expanded Scope Of How To Train Your Dragon"It's a better character to watch."Image via Universal Pictures
One of the most obvious changes to the story is the additional focus given to Astrid. What excited you the most about getting to explore that character more thoroughly in this film?
Having the chance to revisit this story... I mean, I live with my own list of regrets. Every time we finish a project, if I lost an argument or if we didn't have the time to do something, I'm chalking up to, 'if only we had the time. If only it fought a little harder.' Astrid was one of those situations where in the first movie, it felt like she was pretty thin but she had potentially more [depth]. This was a chance to kind of just get in there, to better understand why she's got such an acrimonious relationship with Hiccup in the beginning. She's worked really hard for the attention that she gets.
With Stoick, she's the kid he would have loved to have had, but he ended up with Hiccup. Hiccup is never focused on this destiny. His mind goes elsewhere. He has the benefit of privilege. He's the son of the chief, and so he coasts by, and I think it's a great dynamic because Astrid can really call him out on that. In her mind, she's going to be chief one day. She's been really focused and working hard to get there, and she has to give up a lot to fall from grace with Hiccup. It excited me in that way. It's a better character to watch.
Then we found Nico Parker, who could actually play all of that with confidence. People who are online who are complaining she's not blonde enough or not white enough, just wait till they see the performance. The performance tells me [everything I need to know]. It's also an expanded mythology, so not everyone needs to be white in this community. They are a gathering of warriors from all of these different places, under the same Viking banner.
It sort of broadens the world, and it gives them a real purpose for why they're on this island in the first place. They're now generations in, they've been mixing it all in. All that sort of nonsense [surrounding the diverse casting], I just discount it. They don't know what they don't know. Once you see the movie, the things answer themselves.
RelatedWho Plays Astrid In The Live-Action How To Train Your DragonThe Super Bowl's How to Train Your Dragon trailer takes a closer look at the live-action Astrid, played by an actor from The Last of Us and Dumbo.
Bringing The Vikings Back To The Big Screen"It ratcheted up the tension."That's a very interesting aspect of this world, because it is very true to the adventurous spirit of the viking as a concept.
The truth is, the Vikings did travel far and wide. They were on the Silk Road. They're in the Far East. They're in North Africa. They even had a name for North Africa, which is called Bláland. They interacted with all of these cultures and traded with all of these cultures. So it makes sense. [In this world[, there are dragons. It's the truth. Dragons are a part of so many cultures that, in my mind, if they were a menace to all these cultures, that could be sort of the basis of them coming together for the purpose of wiping the dragons out.
Then it gives a sense of urgency and purpose to the start of the story in Berk. In generations, they haven't even found the nest, never mind actually killing off all the dragons. They're being beaten at their own game. It puts Stoick under a lot of pressure, and it makes Hiccup's screw-ups more consequential. It ratcheted up the tension.
Recreating The Iconic Elements Of How To Train Your DragonImage via Universal Pictures
What was your mindset going into How to Train Your Dragon? Were there moments where you were thinking along the lines of the audience and what they'll love to see, or were you finding new approaches?
We will see if this works or not, but I kind of took the stance that there are key moments that people see as iconic to the original trilogy. Stuff like where [Hiccup and Toothless] are drawing in the sand, where they touch the first time, the test drive where they're flying for the first time. We very carefully tried, with the live-action crew in our set and our camera set-up, to mimic those scenes almost shot for shot.
We knew that we were going to use John Powell's music through those scenes, because we thought that would be a neat way to kind of honor what came before and acknowledge the fans. We deliberately were very close in terms of shot-to-shot at times. In other places, we expanded. We take a scene into a place that was never there. One example would be when Stoick first ventures into the fog looking for the nest.
In the animated movie, the ship literally goes into the fog, and there's a flash and a dragon silhouette. In this movie, we can indulge in that. We play into the mystery as we go into the fog with them. You can hear the dragons surrounding them. You get to ratchet up the peril and the seriousness of Stoick's purpose. It's not just Hiccup befriending dragons, and telling the audience 'oh, they're just all misunderstood. They're just big pets.' We also remind them they're dangerous as fuck. [Laughter]
The Biggest Surprise Of Bringing How To Train Your Dragon To Live-Action"We knew we were building upon a movie that worked."Image via Universal Pictures
What surprised you the most about making the transition from animation to live-action for How To Train Your Dragon?
I may be too close to it, to really see what the big surprises were. The animated movie provided the model — almost like the previous model of what the live action movie is. It allowed us the opportunity to kind of look at where we could add a little bit of depth or a little bit of intensity and not make it feel gratuitous. We didn't want make it feel like you're just adding fat back onto something that had been trimmed down to a fighting weight. I feel like the biggest surprise was just how supportive the set was.
I felt like I was going be such a fish out of water on a live-action set, and I feel like I fell into the groove really quickly. I was keeping up with the pace and being additive instead of holding people back. My rookie-ness went away pretty quickly, I felt like I became part of the crew. It just became such a tight-knit family right away. I was really daunted by it, and it just turned out to be super exciting. Every day I would wake up and say, I'm ready to go again.
It also surprisingly came together really well, because a lot of the other things that you always hear when you watch behind-the-scenes documentaries is that first cut as a disaster. We didn't have that experience, and I think it's because we knew we were building upon a movie that worked. So long as we weren't veering too far away from that narrative, the pieces were sort of just designed to slot in. It's like making a movie with training wheels.
It enabled us to really think about those places where we were given the chance, what would you add? Where would you give more character depth? Where would you give more into the relationships? Where would you add a little bit of visceral action? We know from test audiences that they really love the flying sequences, and now can we dial that up in a way that doesn't make it just feel longer and fatter but earns its place in the story.
How to Train Your Dragon Release Date June 13, 2025 Director Dean DeBlois
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