‘How To Train Your Dragon’ Director Hopes Fans Will “Embrace” the Live-Action Remake

Besides interconnected universes and franchise films, one of the more popular trends in the Hollywood film industry is remakes of successful animated projects. Look no further than the record-breaking Memorial Day weekend—the movie that took the top spot, Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, is a live-action remake of the 2002 animated movie of the same name. One of the highest-grossing films of all time is a remake of The Lion King, done with photorealistic CGI animation as opposed to the original 2D animated film that it is based on. Despite these success stories, the director of the upcoming How to Train Your Dragon remake has had concerns about the project.

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When asked by CinemaBlend about the audience reception to the remake of How to Train Your Dragon, director Dean DeBlois

spoke candidly about his worries regarding how the film would be perceived. Specifically, the director revealed he is well aware of the complaints that come with essentially every remake. While confident in his project, the filmmaker worried that assumptions the audience had about its quality or justifications for it being made would lead to a negative reaction:

“It’s the first time we played it for anybody. I was certainly worried just because – I shouldn’t say worried, I was confident in the movie, but I wasn’t confident in whether people would embrace it. You know, they might be too attached to the animated movies. Or, there’s that whole discussion of like, ‘Why does it even exist?’ You know, ‘It’s too early’ or ‘the animated movies are fine.”

The ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Remake Will Provide More “Character Richness”

Universal Pictures
 

Despite those worries, DeBlois had a unique process for making the film. As he would say, “It’s up to us [the creative team] to try to convince the audience that it’s worthwhile. We went down paths to give more character richness or immersive action and build up the mythology a little bit.” Providing a more lived-in and fully realized world than the original films is certainly a way to keep audiences engaged in a live-action remake.

The How to Train Your Dragon remake had its first screening at CinemaCon, and the first reactions to the film have so far called it a faithful adaptation. Some who have seen the film have teased that some new story beats have been added, but whether that will be enough of a change for longtime fans of the animated films remains to be seen.

Interestingly, it was also announced at CinemaCon that a sequel to the live-action film was already in development, with a release date of June 2027. It seems that DreamWorks is intent on remaking the entire animated trilogy as a series of live-action films, though it’s hard to gauge exactly how successful they’ll be at the box office; although projections for this first entry are already impressive. The animated trilogy is still relatively new, with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World being the last film to be released in 2019. Overall, it seems the films have a lot cut out for them to justify their existence in a movie market already filled to the brim with remakes, reboots, and sequels.

Source: CinemaBlend

How to Train Your Dragon

Release Date

June 13, 2025

Runtime

116 Minutes

• Mason Thames

  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

• Nico Parker

  Astrid Hofferson

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