Latest news with #CressidaCowell
News.com.au
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Gerard Butler jokes he had to get out of his pyjamas for live-action dragon film
Scottish actor Gerard Butler has joked it was fun to 'get out of my pyjamas and actually put on a costume' to star in the live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon. The film star, 55, who voiced Chief Stoick the Vast in the animated films, has reprised his role as the Viking for the new version, which follows the same narrative as the 2010 film inspired by Cressida Cowell's book series.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Live-Action ‘How To Train Your Dragon' Among Additions to Annecy Lineup
A preview of writer/director Dean DeBlois' upcoming live action reimaging of 'How to Train Your Dragon' from Universal has been added to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival lineup. Dreamworks Animation's 2010 original, based on Cressida Cowell's book series, was written and directed by DeBlois and Chris Sandlers, and DeBlois wrote and helmed the following two movies to complete the trilogy. The new film will screen at Annecy on June 11, in advance of its June 13 U.S. release. More from Variety Nick Kroll Reveals the 'Sick Little D-' Scene in 'Big Mouth' That Netflix Asked to Be Cut: 'It's the Grossest Thing' Jimmy Kimmel Joins 'Smurfs' Voice Cast (EXCLUSIVE) Marshmello Joins 'Smurfs' Voice Cast (EXCLUSIVE) A Paramount & Nickelodeon Animation presentation has also been added to the festival schedule, featuring upcoming 'Smurfs,' directed by Chris Miller ('Puss in Boots') and 'The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,' helmed by Derek Drymon. A pair of shorts, 'SpongeBob: Order Up,' directed by Sean Charmatz and 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2 – Lost in New Jersey,' directed by Kent Seki, will also highlight the June 10 session. A first look at Paul McCartney's 3D animated film 'High in the Cloud' helmed by Toby Genkel is also joining the lineup. It's recently-announced all star cast includes Celine Dion, Himesh Patel, Hannah Waddingham, Idris Elba, Lionel Richie, Ringo Starr, Jimmy Fallon, Clémence Poésy, Pom Klementieff and Alain Chabat. Gaumont is producing and repping internationally, and Gaumont's president of global animation and family Terry Kalagian will be at Annecy for the presentation, alongside project supervisor Christian De Vita. Lastly, 'Predator: Killer of Killers' an original adventure set in the Predators universe, written by Dan Trachtenberg and co-directed by Josh Wassung, has joined the Annecy program. The movie debuts June 6 Hulu. Best of Variety All the Godzilla Movies Ranked Final Oscar Predictions: International Feature – United Kingdom to Win Its First Statuette With 'The Zone of Interest' 'Game of Thrones' Filming Locations in Northern Ireland to Open as Tourist Attractions
Geek Tyrant
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Wonderful IMAX Trailer For HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Remake — GeekTyrant
Universal Pictures has released an IMAX trailer for the upcoming remake of How To Train Your Dragon , and it's an wonderful and exciting new look at the film, which has been getting rave reactions from everyone who has seen it. While a lot of people roll their eyes at these live-action remakes of classic animated films because they see them as a cash grab, there's a lot of heart and care that went into crafting How To Train Your Dragon, and it's going to deliver something that audiences will love. Using the books by Cressida Cowell as a jumping-off point, How to Train Your Dragon focuses on the special friendship between a young and unheroic Viking boy named Hiccup, and Toothless, an injured dragon he nurses back to health. The movies chronicled Hiccup and Toothless's quest to combat humanity's prejudice against dragons, the ache of overcoming the loss of a parent, and first love. When talking about Hiccup, DeBlois says the character 'represents all of the oddballs out there, and there are many of us.' When talking about casting Mason Thames in the role, DeBlois said: 'There was a bit of awkwardness, but also a vulnerability to him which [came] with the fact that he was 15 when we were auditioning him.' The movie also stars Nico Parker ( The Last of Us ) as Astrid, Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast, the leader of the Viking clan and Hiccup's father, and Nick Frost ( Shaun of the Dead , Hot Fuzz ) as Viking named Gobber the Belch, the trusted friend and adviser of Stoick. The movie will be released on June 13th, 2025.
Telegraph
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Children cannot roam free any more, says How to Train Your Dragon author
Cressida Cowell has warned that children are 'massively' missing out by not being allowed to play freely outside. The writer and illustrator of the best-selling How to Train Your Dragon books said that she was given the freedom to roam at will as a youngster in the 1970s. Cowell is known both for her books, which have sold millions of copies around the world, and for her passion for children's education. The author believes the liberty afforded by parents of previous generations helped give children a respect for nature and a sense of self-reliance. Cowell said something was 'massively' lost by the change in approach to our free outdoor play. She told the Telegraph: 'It's that sense of adventure, self-reliance, independent thinking, creative thinking. It's all so important.' She added: 'A lot of my books have environmental themes and our relate up with the wild. 'If children don't play in nature… How can you value something if you're not out there in it? 'We're distancing generations of children from nature, and it's never been more important. 'We need children to play in nature.' Roam free Cowell was taken to a remote Scottish island for summer holidays when she was a child, thanks to her father's passion for nature and birdwatching. Despite the cliffs and lack of emergency services on the island, she was allowed to roam free because it was, she told an audience in Oxford, 'the 1970s'. The author was speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival, partnered with The Daily Telegraph. Cowell spent several hours in Oxford signing books and taking photos with young fans. The former Children's Laureate urged parents at the event to find time each day for their children to be creative. Speaking to the Telegraph, she stressed the importance of allowing children to read for pleasure, away from the distraction of modern devices. 'Encouraging' creative industries She has long my campaigned for more schools libraries to help instil a love of reading in the young. Cowell said that she had nothing against screen time, and her own work is the subject of a new live/action adaption of How to Train Your Dragon. However, she said that books had 'incredible benefits' for children, and helped with life chances. The adaptation of Cowell's work has been filmed and produced in the UK, principally Northern Ireland and the writer has said that the UK should be 'encouraging' the creative industries. 'We're really good at this stuff. We're fantastic at this,' she said.
Telegraph
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Cressida Cowell: ‘I want to make the mums laugh and the dads cry'
Cressida Cowell has spent years inventing battles from which her young Viking hero, Hiccup, can emerge bruised but victorious. He has conquered dragons, baddies, and his own insecurities, while Cowell has conquered the world. From a single book in 2003, How To Train Your Dragon has morphed into a global franchise that is popular from China to Brazil. But writing for children brings its own real-life battles: for their attention. 'We are fighting a really difficult situation, which is that the screen has never been better. The competition for children's time has got tougher and tougher,' she says, perched on the corner of an armchair in the living room of her west London home. 'As a writer you have to write books that are as exciting and are as worth their time and effort as going on a screen. And that is tough,' says Cowell, who is 58. A statement bracelet on her forearm adds edge to her black jumper and jeans combo. 'It's rather Viking-esque, isn't it? It was made by an architect and is empowering. It's like a battle cuff.' Films of her own books – there are three DreamWorks animations and a live action version comes out in June ('I've watched it. It was pretty terrific to see our creative industries in action,' she tells me) – are fine, though, because those cinema audiences turn into readers. 'I've had so many letters over the years from children saying, 'I wasn't really a reader, but then I saw these movies.'' She has a point: her various books, which she illustrates in the studio-cum-shed that nestles at the back of her tiny terraced garden, have sold more than 16 million copies worldwide. An entire theme park in Florida, due to open in May, will only further expand her franchise. 'It's going to be incredible,' she says. Fans looking to save on a US air fare could head, instead, to the Isle of Mull. A wildlife tour from Ulva Ferry, on Mull's western coast, will take them past the tiny, remote island of Little Colonsay, which Cowell's late father (Michael Hare, 2nd Viscount Blakenham, a former corporate and establishment heavyweight who was chairman of the RSPB and Kew Gardens) bought in the 1970s. Endless summers spent there as a child inspired her books, which mix text with emotive pen-and-ink sketches of Viking heroes, anti-heroes, and, of course, dragons. She sounds surprised the authorities on Mull have never capitalised on its link to Cowell's books. 'It's a decision for that part of the world, really, whether they want to. I mean, there it is, they could if they wanted to…' Cowell's work has always been 'very visual': the less text, the less off-putting the book, and indeed her new spin-off series How to Train Your Dragon School – out in May – will include even more illustrations, a gateway for the uninitiated. This isn't to denigrate a youngster's capabilities. Children, she says, are smart, adding that they can run into trouble finding books to read. 'If they can only access books up to their reading abilities, they can quickly feel that books are a bit dull compared to telly and everything else.' There is a simple solution, however. 'Audiobooks are a fantastic way into reading. There needs to be more emphasis on them. Some people do look down on them as lesser – maybe they seem like the easy option – but the most important thing when children are young is that [reading] is fun, so that they want to read the next thing, in whatever format.' (New research by the National Literacy Trust, released after our conversation, shows that children now prefer audiobooks to reading books for the first time. Just one in three children aged eight to 18 said they read for pleasure.) Parents and teachers need to make more time for reading out loud full stop, she adds. 'You should read aloud to kids way longer than they can read to themselves. At school, suddenly all the kids in a class are on the same level. They're not competing with each other on reading ability.' Another parental tip is not to pigeonhole their children. 'Parents, should never say, 'Oh, so and so is the reader and the other one doesn't read very much.'' Plus people change. One of her children (she has three; the youngest is at university) didn't get into books until they found The One: Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, as it happens. 'They were about 13 and that same kid went on to study English Literature.' Parents also need to lead by example. 'What's really helpful is if they see adults around them enjoying books themselves. I set out to make the dads cry and the mums laugh. If your dad reads you a book and he cries at the end of it, that sends this incredibly important message to a kid – that books are powerful things.' Cowell, who was the Children's Laureate from 2019 to 2021, has reason to be anxious about the outlook for her industry. A survey last year by the National Literacy Trust found children's reading enjoyment had fallen to its lowest level in almost two decades, while reading frequency is also at a historic low. Research shows children who read for pleasure are more likely to do well in school and own a house. She adds: 'The more your literacy points go up, the more likely it is that you won't end up in prison, that you'll have a job, that you'll vote. The problem is there are still children reading for pleasure but they tend to be from wealthier families, and that is a social problem kicked down the line.' Hope lies in initiatives such as the Libraries for Primaries, a privately funded alliance that has helped to open 1,000 libraries in three years. Even this isn't ideal. 'I feel uncomfortable that it's dealt with in a 'Let's have a whip round and provide some books for our particular school' because there isn't a nationwide strategy for addressing the problem.' Children need guidance. 'You need someone trained up in getting kids reading for pleasure. Finding something that excites them. You might start with a comic book or a book about football and then you can move them on to maybe something more complicated.' They also need help avoiding books that are bad, like the plethora churned out by celebrities who think they can write. 'If they're good, then great. But if not, then,' she pauses, '…it's a shame. If a child picks up too many books that don't excite them, then they will eventually think, 'Oh books, there's not much in them,'' she says. Her own childhood love of books is evident from a bookshelf of faded old editions that lines one of the walls behind her. Many belonged to her father, while some belonged to her father's grandfather: the Shakespeare plays and the Trollopes. Others are childhood favourites: Peter Pan, Treasure Island, books by Diana Wynne Jones, Astrid Lindgren, Ursula le Guin, and Violet Needham. She credits internal pressure to live up to some of her family's weightier presences – her uncle was head of the US Supreme Court – for inspiring her writing. 'Embedded in the books is little me looking up at these giants and thinking, 'How am I ever going to measure up to these huge people,' she pauses, splitting with laughter, 'who are being Big Business People, or Supreme Court people. What am I going to do to impress them?' As well as writing about dragons, she is 'also writing about what it takes to be a leader. That's also probably because I had a lot of people chatting about big political questions over my head.' Saving Generation Alpha from illiteracy would be quite the legacy. I wouldn't put it past her to pull it off.
