Dean DeBlois, who directed all three of the animated How to Train Your Dragon films, is attached to direct the franchise’s first live-action entry.
By Michileen Martin | Published
Disney apparently doesn’t have a monopoly on bringing beloved animated franchises into live action. Our trusted and proven sources tell us that Universal is developing a live-action entry in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. Dean DeBlois, who directed 2010 How to Train Your Dragon and its two sequels, has been tapped to direct the live-action film.
We don’t know if the live action movie will be a remake of the first one. How to Train Your Dragon or an entirely new project, but the former seems the more likely possibility. With visual effects technology improving in the decade since the first animated film was released, the potential for a stunning live-action version of the film is obvious. Not to mention, there’s a growing interest in live-action fantasy, with projects like dragon house, Willowand the next Dungeons and Dragons film continues to stir the pot.
Actually, the timing of this news might have something to do with one of those fantasy franchises that inspire Universal. In November, it was revealed that the scene of action of the dragon house The Season 1 finale, in which two dragons, one ridden by a child, collide in the sky, was heavily inspired by a similar scene in How to Train Your Dragon.
This is nothing more than pure speculation, but maybe seeing that dragon house The scene showed Universal exactly what could be done in a live action movie. How to Train Your Dragon.
Loosely based on the children’s book series by British author Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon was launched in 2010 with a long list of stellar voice talents, including Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill, Craig Ferguson, and Kristen Wiig. The film was nominated for two Oscars, including Best Animated Feature, but was unlucky enough to be released the same year as toy Story 3.
The live-action movie is still in development, so the cast has yet to be defined. We would assume that most of the voice cast of the animation How to Train Your Dragon The movie wouldn’t easily fit into a live-action version, though a no-brainer would be for Gerard Butler to appear as a live-action version of King Stoick the Vast. Butler not only voices the hero’s father in all three films and in much of the related media, but How to Train Your Dragon it remains the actor’s best-reviewed film according to Rotten Tomatoes.
While the features DeBlois has directed have been exclusively animated thus far, the new project our sources told us about won’t be his first live-action film. In September 2019, seven months after the launch of How to train your dragon: the hidden world — The Hollywood Reporter announced that DeBlois would be in charge of the long-gestating micronauts for Paramount and Hasbro. Perhaps working on the movie for the toy line is what gave DeBlois the most taste for live action.