'How to Train Your Dragon' director explains why he was a 'little reluctant' to announce sequel

Yahoo

9 hours ago

The live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon has only just soared into theaters, and a sequel is already underway.
In fact, it was announced back in April at CinemaCon 2025, well before the film, which hails from writer-director and alum of the original animated series Dean DeBlois, was even released. The news came as a bit of a surprise to the audience of theater owners and exhibitors — usually, the modus operandi for studios is to wait and at least see how something performs at the box office before asking for more.
Which is exactly what DeBlois told Entertainment Weekly when we asked him about it in May, a few weeks before the film's June 13 bow. "I think once [Universal Pictures] saw a pretty finished version of the movie that we tested with an audience, they felt really confident. And so they wanted to let it be known especially at CinemaCon, because there's so many factors that go into planning for a movie, even two years out, getting screens and premium large format screens, and just getting movie theater exhibitors excited," he says, but, "I was a little reluctant."
He continues, "I'm like, maybe we should just release the movie first and see if people like it before you go and announce another one? But I understood that that was the audience where you want to get them excited about what's coming."
DeBlois and stars Gerard Butler and Nico Parker were on hand to make the announcement, which took place during Universal's studio presentation after the film made its world premiere at the conference earlier that same morning. And according to Parker, DeBlois wasn't the only one hesitant to announce the sequel, which is slated for release on June 11, 2027.
"I remember me and Gerry [Butler] being like, this is going to be so embarrassing if everyone hated the film, because we're going to have to go out there and be like, 'What did you think? Aw good. Well, guess what? More where that came from!' And everyone would just be booing," Parker says, laughing at the memory. "We were both kind of terrified that it would just go horribly. But it went well."
It went well indeed. Both the announcement and the debut of How to Train Your Dragon received strong applause from the CinemaCon crowd, and the film received positive reviews and even better box office tracking ahead of its release. Based on the 2010 animated film of the same name, which itself was the first of a trilogy, the live-action remake is also set on the fictional isle of Berk. It follows outcast teen Hiccup (Mason Thames), whose inability to kill dragons like the rest of his Viking comrades leads to him accidentally befriending one — a Night Fury named Toothless.
Now, DeBlois sets his sights on the sequel, which he's paused efforts on to conduct this interview with EW. "Now it's tackling the story, and that's a weird thing for me, because I wrote the story for How to Train Your Dragon 2 the animated movie, and I'm proud of these movies, and so I have to be really objective and stand back and say, what could be done better?" he says. "So I'm in that process now. Literally, today, when I get off the call with you, I'll go back to my keyboard and start tapping away."
DeBlois doesn't want to get specific about the process just yet. Still, he does tease that, like this first live-action film, the sequel will be a faithful recreation of its animated predecessor, something that Universal encouraged from the beginning. "I think they saw great value in playing to the nostalgia of people who grew up with these movies and then also presenting something new and fresh for a whole new audience who might not be familiar with them," DeBlois explains. "So I think by choosing that lane and going down that lane and trying to be additive in every way that we did, in terms of deepening mythology and deepening character relationships and going even more immersive with action, that's where we felt we could bring more without reinventing. And if it goes out into the world and people receive it well, then we'll continue that path of how do we do then movie 2 in a similar way, where we tell a story that people will know and have a nostalgia for, but has surprises, too."Speaking of nostalgia, we know of at least one person who's chomping at the bit for the sequel: admitted Dragon superfan and Hiccup himself. "I'm so thrilled," Thames says, with a giant grin. "Of the animated movies, the second one is probably my favorite — it hits the feels every time. So if we get the chance to do that, I'm looking forward to it."
How to Train Your Dragon, which also stars Nick Frost, Gabriel Howell, Julian Dennison, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, and Peter Serafinowicz, is now playing in theaters.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly